FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו

From an email:

Marcy Winograd is the co-founder of the LA Jews for Peace collective and a long-time anti-war activist in Los Angeles. Inspired by author Joel Kovel’s book Overcoming Zionism, she is interested in assembling and publishing an anthology entitled: From Zionism to Humanism: Personal Stories of Jews Who Dare to Speak Out…

We were brainwashed, indoctrinated, fooled. Zionism is not the way. You can’t steal people’s land, erect a country on the basis of religious or cultural superiority and ever think you will be at peace. It is wrong. Zionism hijacked us, robbed us of our humanity, and conned us into thinking Israel equaled Judaism. — Marcy Winograd

Humanism, not Zionism, is the path to peace.

There’s plenty more like this. The usual propaganda — she accuses Israel of “indiscriminate bombing of civilians” — mixed with first person self-hatred.

I know, it’s a trite thing to say, I should answer her arguments instead of slamming her ad hominem. But my answers are all over this blog, and — trite or not — how else can you characterize this:

Though I identify with persecuted Jews, I grow up longing to be part of the dominant culture. I hang little red and green lights on plastic Christmas trees and rarely visit temple except to hava nagila at the boys’ bar mitzvahs or to pray on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when we never atone for the sin of theft, slaughter, or occupation.

Winograd’s parents considered themselves “world citizens”, she says, and I presume that she would describe herself similarly (perhaps with a more up-to-date phrase). She feels deeply for the victims of Sabra and Shatila, for the “Lebanese children”, etc.

But somehow the fact that almost the entire Arab world, comprising 23 nations with about 350 million people (and that doesn’t include non-Arab Iran), is dedicated to the violent replacement of a small democratic state containing 5.5 million Jews (and 1.5 million Arabs) with yet another Arab dictatorship simply doesn’t strike a chord in her.

Why should it? She has no Jewish connection. If the temple where she goes to “hava nagila” and all the rest of them were to disappear tomorrow it wouldn’t matter at all. The fact that there is only one Jewish homeland is not important either, to a world citizen like Ms. Winograd. It, too, could disappear. A world citizen is at home anyplace.

Nevertheless, she makes a big deal about her Jewishness — in the context of her anti-Zionism.

Insofar as it gives her an audience for her recitation of lies and distortions about history and current fact, insofar as it perversely lends credence to her false accusations, she is happy to be Jewish.

She mentions persecuted Jews and the Holocaust. Although she can put herself in the place of Palestinian refugees, can she imagine being a Jew with nowhere in the world to go? It may come to pass again, if humanists like Marcy Winograd have their way.

Do us (the Jews) a favor, Ms. Winograd. Say the Shehada. Learn some Arabic, put on the hijab. Spend a few years in an Arab country. Then as a Muslim Arab anti-Zionist, you will be entirely normal.

And we won’t have to listen to your crap about being Jewish.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Marcy Winograd, LA Jews for Peace

The publication of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), and — more importantly — the spin placed on the statement therein that “in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program”, has encouraged Iran to continue its enrichment of uranium and has reduced the possibility of effective international sanctions.

In the international scene, Russia’s decision to renew fuel shipments to Iran main nuclear facility at Bushehr was interpreted by many anlysts as stemming directly from the NIE’s publication; another development possibly stemming from the report is Russia and China’s hardened position on further sanctions against Teheran.

In Teheran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quick to capitalize on the NIE, calling it an “Iranian victory” and demanding that the United States publicly apologize for its previous bellicose stance. — Jerusalem Post

As I have written, reading past the first sentence in the NIE makes it clear that the intelligence community’s estimation of the Iranian potential to make nuclear weapons has not changed much, if at all.

However, politically — in both the international and domestic arenas — the statement is highly significant. Unless it’s a trick to distract the Iranians while we plan to bomb them (doubtful), it sends the message that the US does not plan to interfere militarily in the Iranian program. And this message has obviously been received loud and clear in Moscow, Beijing, and Teheran.

Today, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said

On Iran, I continue to say that if Iran will just do the one thing that is required of it by the Security Council resolutions that have been passed — and that is suspend its enrichment and reprocessing activities — then I’m prepared to meet my counterpart any place and anytime and anywhere and we can talk about anything… — AP

Of course Iran does not need to worry about resolutions which are not likely to be enforced, but note also that she did not even mention nuclear weapons.

One can speculate about why the US has taken the military option off the table. Some possibilities are

• we have been deterred by the probable Iranian response, both against our troops, ships, and installations in the region and in the form of terrorism against Americans in the US and elsewhere; and

• we have been encouraged by secret Iranian promises to take the heat off in Iraq.

Probably, the answer is a bit of both. I also think our policymakers think that a direct nuclear threat from Iran against the US is far in the future, and can be deterred by a promise of massive retaliation.

For Israel the question is much sharper. Israeli planners see a world with Iranian nuclear weapons as a world without Israel.

The consequence of the NIE is that both US pressure and international sanctions are less likely to prevent Iran from achieving its goal. Therefore, the possibility that Israel will at some point find her red line crossed and wil attack Iran is much greater.

Some argue that this can’t happen because Israel doesn’t have the capability, because Israel can’t risk the Iranian (and Syrian) response, because the US is unlikely to give the ‘green light’, etc.

But in a life or death situation, even the most dangerous course of action is better than doing nothing.

Technorati Tags: Iran, Israel, NIE

From the people who gave us the Danish Cartoon Riots and the Teddy Bear Affair:

(IsraelNN.com) Jewish worshippers Tuesday were stunned to find Arabs had desecrated the graves of the Biblical Joshua, Caleb and Nun (Joshua’s father).

Joshua served as the Jewish Nation’s Prime Minister from the year 2488 until 2516 on the Hebrew calendar (1272 BCE - 1300 BCE).

Members of the One Shechem organization that organizes visits to the graves arrived in the village of Timnat (Kifl) Haress, near Ariel in Samaria, to prepare for a special prayer gathering, discovered that Arab vandals had desecrated the village’s Jewish tombs. The tombs of Yehoshua (Joshua) ben Nun, Nun, and Calev (Caleb) ben Yefuneh were covered with garbage and feces – both human and animal, and anti-Semitic and Nazi slogans and symbols had been painted in the area.

Israel of course has gone out of her way to protect Muslim holy sites. How do you think the Arabs would treat ours if they had control of East Jerusalem?

That’s right. Like they did in 1948-67, like Joseph’s tomb in 2000, and like the graves of Joshua, Nun, and Caleb this week.

Technorati Tags: Arabs, Joshua, Caleb, Nun

Another idea that misses the point:

The mechanism for an international security presence in the Gaza Strip “could be devised quickly” if Israel and the Palestinians reach an agreement on the matter, EU Middle East envoy Marc Otte told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.

Otte said there is “definitely more interest than in the past” for the idea from both the Israeli and Palestinian sides…

Hamas spokesmen, however, have said consistently they would oppose any international force and view it as an occupier no different than Israel. — Jerusalem Post

A UN or NATO force in Gaza would be a decidedly mixed blessing — or worse. For one thing, Israel would be severely limited in her ability to strike at terrorists who launch rockets into Israel. And even if the force were highly motivated to do so, stopping the terrorists from launching would be very, very difficult.

It would certainly put an end to the possibility of a massive Israeli invasion. It might reduce the tunneling and explosive-planting activities of Hamas near the border fence with Israel, but on the other hand would give Hamas a respite from Israeli attacks in which they could continue to build up their forces, manufacture rockets, smuggle supplies, etc.

Since the force would have to communicate with Hamas, this would provide Hamas some degree of legitimacy.

Hamas is an outlaw organization, using terrorism as policy and making war on a legitimate UN member state, Israel. I suppose that in an ideal world with a real UN, the international policemen would simply step in and arrest the leaders of a criminal, murderous, genocidal gang like Hamas. But that isn’t the world we live in.

Meanwhile, Gaza terrorists are hurting from recent Israeli air strikes that have killed 13 Islamic Jihad and Hamas guerrillas in the past few days. Gaza Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has suggested that Hamas and Israel should negotiate a hudna, a temporary truce, in which Hamas would stop the rocket fire and Israel the air attacks.

Israeli President Shimon Peres, not usually my favorite guy, made eminent sense when he pointed out in response that all Hamas has to do is stop the rockets and Israel will stop the air attacks — no negotiation required or desired.

Since the IAF is so much more accurate than Palestinian rockets, perhaps the best outcome would be for the present situation to continue unchanged for a while, until the terrorist factions in Gaza are decimated.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Hamas, Gaza

Foreign donors have just pledged $7.4 billion in aid to the Palestinian Authority. This is intended to ameliorate poverty, build infrastructure, and ultimately reduce violence.

How has this strategy worked in the past? Steven Stotsky, writing for CAMERA, presents a picture that is not terribly encouraging. It seems that homicides by Palestinians, both in terrorism against Israelis and in factional fighting are closely correlated to aid given to the Palestinian Authority.

The following graph plots the number of Israelis and Palestinians killed by Palestinian terrorists and the amount of aid received by the PA from 2000 - 2007. The murder data is shown for the year after the aid was received, in which the correlation is almost perfect.

The going rate seems to be about one murder for every $1.2 million. At this rate, we can expect nearly 6200 murders for our $7.4 billion.

Does this prove anything? Of course not. There are lots of reasons for the ups and downs in Palestinian productivity, and foreign aid is only one of them.

As is often said, “Past performance is no guarantee of future results”, but it certainly helps to evaluate an investment.

Technorati Tags: terrorism, Palestinians

As stated, the US plan to ’solve’ the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by forcing the creation of a Palestinian state run by Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction is absurd.

It’s not possible for Israel to make peace with the Palestinians by making peace with Fatah, since about 36% of the ‘Palestinians’ live under Hamas in Gaza.

The ‘two-state solution’ envisions a peaceful Palestinian state alongside Israel; a state with an economy that can ultimately provide for its citizens. It is for this that international donors just pledged $7.4 billion.

It is hard enough to imagine a Palestinian leadership which will break with the tradition of using aid to enrich itself and to finance war against Israel, and actually try to develop a functioning nation. But it is impossible to imagine that this nation can be made of just the West Bank.

If there is going to be a Palestinian state, it has to include both the West Bank and Gaza. And that means that something has to change with regard to Hamas, which has the allegiance of a large number of Palestinians and indeed won a democratic election.

Either Hamas has to disappear, which is impossible, or it must join with other factions in creating some kind of unified Palestinian entity. And in fact, this is what Egypt and Saudi Arabia are trying to make happen.

This week, Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal met with top Saudi officials and updated them on the latest efforts to end the rift between the two largest Palestinian political movements.

According to Hamas officials in Gaza, Meshaal presented to the Saudi leadership “a comprehensive package of proposals” that would rectify the current state of division. The proposals include a willingness on Hamas’s part to hand over “security headquarters” and “a number of civilian ministries” in the Gaza Strip to Fatah, which would be followed by the creation of a national unity government based on the Saudi-mediated Mecca Accord as well as the National Reconciliation Document.

Meshaal reportedly asked the Saudi leadership to exert pressure on Fatah’s leadership, especially Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas, who visited Riyadh last week and briefed Saudi King Abdullah on developments pertaining to the Annapolis conference.

Similarly, Egypt has asked both Hamas and Fatah to dispatch delegations to Cairo after the Eid Al-Adha holiday — which comes 18 December — in an effort to end the inter- Palestinian schism. It is not certain if Egyptian and Saudi efforts are being coordinated. — Al-Ahrahm [Cairo]

Meanwhile, the US is rapidly pushing Israel into giving up security, land and sovereignty to the Fatah faction, while arming them (to “fight terrorism”, of course). But the Fatah leadership has as yet shown no desire or ability to control their own al-Aqsa Brigade terrorists; what will they do joined with Hamas (or as a junior partner)?

Is seems as though the US wants to see Israel reduced to pre-1967 borders and surrounded by aggressive terrorist enclaves or hostile powers to the North, East, and Southwest.

If the goal were long-term stability in the region, one would think that the way to attain this would involve weakening the elements that plan war and support terrorism. Yet we are rewarding them, and even encouraging the tactic of terrorism by preventing Israel from responding severely (e.g., in Gaza) while demanding security concessions. And we are weakening Israel which does have an interest in coexistence.

I’m afraid that all the talk from the US about the peaceful Palestinian state alongside Israel is just an attempt to defuse opposition from Israel supporters. So what are we trying to do?

My assessment is that US policymakers believe that they can appease the anti-Israel ‘activists’ (Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia) among the Arabs for as long as it takes to escape from Iraq without going quite far enough to allow Israel to be destroyed. Once this is accomplished, the Palestinians will be left to their street-gang politics.

Note that nobody — particularly not Iran or the Arab nations and not the US — gives a fig about the Palestinians as anything other than a tool to accomplish their own ends. I can pretty much guarantee that no matter how this turns out for Israel, things will continue to be bad for most Palestinians.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Fatah, Hamas

Donatella Rovera, chief researcher for Amnesty International on Israel and the Palestinians, said that human rights issues — meaning closures, roadblocks, the security fence, etc. were not on the table at Annapolis.

And it’s clear to her that these ‘violations of Palestinian rights’ are due to the presence of Israeli settlements in the territories:

“Now these are consequences of the settlements. If you put a grid of where the closures, the forbidden roads, and the separation barrier are located over a map of the area, [you will see that] the location of all of them is determined by the location of the settlements. Clearly, as long as the settlements are there, the restrictions will not be lifted.” — Jerusalem Post [my emphasis]

Simple cause and effect: the settlements cause the problem; take them away, and the problem will go away.

REALITY INVERSION!

The ‘rights violations’ are there because Palestinians are trying to attack the settlements and kill their residents. Take away the al-Aqsa brigades, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, ad inf., and there will be no need for closures, checkpoints, or a security fence. It would have been more correct to say “as long as the terrorists are there, the restrictions will not be lifted”.

But Ms. Rovera doesn’t see that she has it backwards, because she is convinced that the settlements themselves are a violation of the Palestinians’ rights — the ‘right’ that they claim to be free of Jews in ‘their’ land — and so their terrorism is entirely justified. Anything the Jews do to prevent it is a further violation.

She also obviously does not see that removing the settlements would not end the problem, because if the settlements were removed, the terrorism would move up to the Green Line — just as it did when Israel withdrew from Gaza. And there would be more ‘rights violations’ when Israel tried to defend herself from there.

So the settlements are in fact not the cause of the problem — the Palestinians’ use of terrorism to drive the Jews out of the land is. But it should already be clear that this is not a problem for her.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians, terrorism, Amnesty International, Donatella Rovera

Suppose all you had to go on was Reuters news:

Palestinians warn settlement plan will cloud talks

PARIS (Reuters) - Israel’s plan to build houses on occupied land near Jerusalem will cloud renewed peace talks, the Palestinian Authority said on Sunday, the day before an international aid conference opens in Paris…

“The Paris meeting tomorrow is an important step forward. We hope the Israelis will not put any obstacles in front of the understandings of Annapolis,” Palestinian spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah told reporters on Sunday…

“We need a clear cut Israeli decision concerning this (settlement) issue, which is very sensitive and important to the Palestinians. This issue is going to reflect itself, whether positively or negatively, in the coming negotiations,” he said. [my emphasis]

The place in question is a Jewish neighborhood called Har Homa, which is on the southeastern part of Jerusalem, between it and the Palestinian controlled town of Bethlehem. The area is within Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries, on land that was captured from the Jordanians in 1967 (pre-1948, most of the land was owned by Jews). The area was taken from Jewish and Arab owners by the municipality in 1991; the owners were compensated and no residents, Jewish or Arab, were displaced. The neighborhood was built in 1997.

Har Homa

Presently it has 6000 residents. The so-called “settlement plan” is to build housing for an additional 300 residents within the existing neighborhood.

In addition to the Palestinians, both UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon (’illegal’) and Condoleezza Rice (’unhelpful’) have criticized the Israeli action.

But even if you think that Israel will ultimately turn over some areas within Jerusalem’s boundaries to Palestinian control, the Palestinian argument that all the territory held by Jordan in 1948-1967 belongs to them — regardless of whether it is populated by Jews or Arabs — is not supportable.

Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem is no more illegal than Jordan’s conquest of it in 1948. And keep in mind that Israel allowed all faiths access to thir holy sites, while Jordan expelled or murdered the Jews that lived in East Jerusalem, turned synagogues into stables, and for 19 years refused Jewish access to the holy places.

Given that an agreement with the Palestinians that will include an end to terrorism is highly unlikely in the near future, Israel’s action to strengthen Jewish neighborhoods in strategic areas — Har Homa serves as a buffer between Bethlehem and its suburbs and Jerusalem — is quite reasonable. Reuters’ description of this as a “settlement plan” is misleading at best.

And Condoleezza Rice’s support of Palestinian objections to Israel building homes inside a Jewish neighborhood within the boundaries of Israel’s capital is not what one expects of an ally (it is of course precisely what we expect from the UN). But then the US is not behaving like much of an ally lately.

Nevertheless, as Lenny Ben-David (’The strategic significance of Har Homa’) points out, the remarks of Moon and Rice are likely to be taken by the Palestinians as tacit approval for a campaign of terrorism against Har Homa, and we can expect to see this soon.

Technorati Tags: Har Homa, Jerusalem

Everybody’s jumping on the bandwagon:

JERUSALEM (AFP) — Another UN agency joined the chorus of alarm on Friday about the devastating consequences of Israeli restrictions on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, in the run-up to a Palestinian donors’ conference.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warned that the restrictions Israel tightened after Hamas seized armed control of the territory in June could irrevocably damage the Gaza economy.

It was the third international report released this week about the mounting difficulties endured by the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, following findings from the World Bank and the World Health Organisation.

Let’s leave aside the fact that huge amounts of Iranian money are being spent to smuggle weapons and explosives into Gaza, to support the construction of fortifications on the Israel-Gaza border, to pay the Hamas ’security’ forces, and to keep the Qassam missile factories humming.

Let’s look at some of the reasons that the Israeli authorities are not allowing free passage from Gaza into Israel.

Today a Qassam rocket damaged a kibbutz factory. Luckily no one was injured. Yesterday a woman was seriously hurt in Sderot when a rocket crashed through the roof of her home and exploded, throwing her into a wall. On Wednesday, more than 20 rockets hit in and around Sderot, and one person was injured. This has been continuing day in and out since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

The Palestinians complain that sick people have to pass through checkpoints if they need medical treatment that is only available in Israel. In July of 2005 (shortly before the withdrawal) a young woman named Wafa al-Bis was arrested at one of these checkpoints carrying explosives. The BBC described the incident:

Israeli officials said Ms Bis, who comes from the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza, was burnt in a cooking accident five months ago, and had received treatment on humanitarian grounds in the Beersheba hospital.

They said she was making another trip for follow-up treatment on Monday, but planned to blow herself up instead.

In an interview shown on Israeli television, Ms Bis said her “dream was to be a martyr”.

She said she was recruited by the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades - an off-shoot of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction.

And here is an example of the Gaza ‘economy’ that the World Bank is so worried about:

The IDF [this August] uncovered an underground tunnel leading from the Gaza Strip towards Israel, the army said Wednesday. The tunnel shaft was connected to a Gaza hothouse used to grow tomatoes and situated 700 meters from the border fence…

Army officials believe that a terror attack had been foiled by uncovering the tunnel. According to estimates, Palestinians planned to use the tunnel in order to smuggle explosives and [place] them under an Israeli military or civilian target.

The IDF was also looking into the possibility that the tunnel was slated to be used to smuggle terrorists into Israel. — YNet

So here are some questions for the World Bank et al:

• Would you want the Gazans for your neighbors?
• Whose fault is it that there are restrictions on passage from Gaza to Israel?
• Wouldn’t the best way to improve the Palestinian economy be to base it on something other than murder?

Technorati Tags: World Bank, Gaza, Israel, terrorism, al-Bis

Speaking of who pays for terrorism,

WASHINGTON - The United States Agency for International Development gave the Islamic University in Gaza nearly $1 million in foreign aid from 2002 to 2006 according to an audit conducted by the agency’s inspector general…

Throughout the four-year period, the agency conducted several inquiries into its funding of the Gaza institution and on each occasion concluded that there was no reason to cease American funding.

The Islamic University also repeatedly claimed that there was no reason to halt the aid on the grounds that it did not support terrorism…

[U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill)] pointed the inspector general of the aid agency to the fact that former Palestinian Prime Minister and current Hamas government head, Ismail Haniyeh, sits on the Islamic University’s board of trustees. Additionally, Palestinian security forces seized assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades during a raid of the university in January. — YNet [my emphasis]

Why do I think they should have been suspicious of the “Islamic University of Gaza”?

Technorati Tags: Gaza, USAID, Hamas, Mark Kirk

Those of us who felt that the Second Lebanon War was an unmitigated disaster for Israel might take some comfort in the fact that a great deal of pain was inflicted on Hizbullah.

Some of Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s responsibilities have been taken away by the organization’s backer Iran, the pan-Arabic daily Asharq Alawsat claimed Thursday.

Reportedly, Nasrallah is no longer in control of the organization’s military wing, which is now headed by Nasrallah’s deputy Sheikh Na’im Kassem.

The Iranian official Asharq Alawsat cites as the one who demoted Nasrallah is none other than Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei…

Western intelligence sources cited by Asharq reported that Teheran was furious over Nasrallah’s conduct during the Second Lebanon War and that was the reasoning behind the decision to diminish Nasrallah’s authority. — Jerusalem Post

If nothing else, this emphasizes just how much Hizbullah is a creature of Iran. Indeed, the same article mentions that

Hizbullah’s budget in the last 18 months has been $1 billion, to compensate the organization for the losses it suffered during the war. Hizbullah’s yearly Iranian budget stands on $400 million, [an Iranian Revolutionary Guard officer] added. [my emphasis]

Can you imagine if an enemy of the US were paying billions to terrorists in southern Canada to fire missles across the border and kidnap our soldiers?

Hizbullah is directly supplied through Syria and financed by Iran. The terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad receive similar support, as well as help from Saudi Arabia.

Keep this in mind when you hear that the conflict is between the Israeli Goliath and the oppressed Palestinian Davids.

Condi Rice should think about this when she compares Palestinians to blacks in the segregated South. And then ask herself who is paying and supplying the insurgents that are killing our soldiers in Iraq.

It isn’t Israel.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Nasrallah, Hizbullah, Iran

FresnoZionism.org is one year old this month. The first post, on December 6, 2006, was inspired by the publication of the Iraq Study Group report with its appalling suggestion that the US buy its way out of Iraq by betraying Israel — an idea that, unfortunately, seems to have become policy.

This is the 725th post. Since the beginnning, FresnoZionism has gotten about 60,000 page hits from about 10,000 unique IP addresses. Only some fraction of these are real people reading it, of course. There are 247 comments on these posts, many of them by the indefatigable Shalom Freedman in Jerusalem. There are 33 other sites with links to FresnoZionism right now. All of this makes us small potatoes in the blog world.

Writers and editors are nourished the thought that somewhere someone is actually reading what they produce. Thank you all for this.