FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו

News item:

PARIS — France wants the European Union to have a seat at the table during next week’s start of US-backed peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in Washington.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said it would be “too bad” if the EU were locked out — noting the bloc’s political involvement in the region and its role as a top contributor of financial aid to the Palestinians. — Jerusalem Post

Let’s see. We have the Obama Administration, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. Now we need the EU? Let’s invite J Street, too. After all,we need someone to be ‘pro-Israel’.

Not only is the EU a ‘top contributor’ to the Palestinian Authority, it also finances numerous non-governmental organizations in Israel whose primary function seems to be to delegitimize or even destabilize the Jewish state.

And the EU doesn’t shrink from trying to directly intervene in the internal affairs of Israel. For example,

Abdallah Abu Rahmeh, an organizer of the weekly Friday protests at Bil’in of the West Bank security fence, was convicted Tuesday in an Israeli military court of inciting protesters to attack Israeli soldiers and for holding protests without a permit. He will be sentenced next month. The 39-year-old schoolteacher has been jailed since December.

EU representatives attended every day of the trial, and the body’s foriegn policy chief, Catherine Ashton, released a statement Wednesday expressing concern at the conviction, saying, “The possible imprisonment of Mr. Abu Rahmeh is intended to prevent him and other Palestinians from exercising their legitimate right to protest against the existence of the separation barriers in a non-violent manner.”

“The EU considers the route of the barrier where it is built on Palestinian land to be illegal,” it quoted her as saying in a statement. — JTA

Where to start?

The weekly protests are anything but non-violent, with Arab and international organizers doing their best to physically destroy the separation barrier, and to injure or provoke Israeli soldiers and police who are trying to defend it. One of their goals is to place international ‘activists’ in harm’s way in order to generate sympathy overseas for their cause.  In several cases — for example the recent incident in which American student Emily Henochowicz lost an  eye when she was hit by a teargas canister — they have succeeded too well.

The land that Ashton refers to is not ‘Palestinian land’. It is land that happened to be east of the line that divided Israeli from Jordanian troops in 1949, and by international law it still awaits disposition by a peace treaty between the combatants — despite the fact that Jordan decided in 1988 to give it to the PLO — a terrorist organization.

Here’s an analogy: You and I both claim to own a car. You take possession of it by force (1949), I take it back (1967), and you transfer your claim on it to the Mafia (1988). Then (2010), the EU objects to my driving it because “it belongs to those Sicilian guys.”

Our original claim, by the way, is pretty good, consisting of the original League of Nations Mandate which calls for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” Clearly this doesn’t mean that all of ‘Palestine’ of the Mandate must become the Jewish national home, but it certainly doesn’t limit it to any given part (not to mention that right off the bat the British gave away a good 70% of it to their ally, Abdullah, to create the state of Transjordan).

As an aside, if the area is in dispute and you don’t want to create facts on the ground, then nobody — not Jews and not Arabs — should build anything on it. Saying that only Jews are forbidden to build looks tacky.

Some people think that the EU, being a postnational entity itself, doesn’t take kindly to Zionism. World citizens like the Baroness Ashton think that nation-states based on ethnicity or even religion — although Zionism is not essentially a religious concept, clearly Judaism has something to do with it — are passé and dangerous. Nationalism, they would say, is the main cause of war.

They are wrong. These days, the most dangerous ideology is a universalist and anti-nationalist one: radical Islam.

But note that the proposed state of ‘Palestine’ is a nation-state based on ethnicity with an established religion.

Also, I thought I’d mention that in a world without nation-states there wouldn’t be any baronesses.

Technorati Tags: Israel, EU, direct talks, Palestinians, Catherine Ashton

Tuesday’s incident in which a Muslim cabdriver was attacked in New York is being treated as emblematic of the controversy about the Ground Zero mosque:

The police said Mr. Enright had been drinking for much of Tuesday afternoon before getting in the cab and exchanging pleasantries with the driver, Ahmed H. Sharif, 44, who is originally from Bangladesh. He asked Mr. Sharif if he was Muslim and greeted him with “salaam aleikum,” an Arabic greeting that means “peace be upon you.” He even asked Mr. Sharif how his celebration of Ramadan was going before he began cursing at him and slashing him in his face, arm and hands with a knife, Mr. Sharif told the police. — NY Times

Here are some of the things being said about it:

• It was the fault of Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing talk radio hosts who have stirred up Islamophobia
• The perpetrator was a right-winger
• No, he was a left-winger
• It’s all about the mosque — this shows it should be built
• It’s all about the mosque — this shows it should not be built

How about this: he was both drunk and crazy, and picked an issue that resonated in his drunk and crazy brain. It is entirely irrelevant to the mosque issue.

I spent a few months driving a cab in my youth and met more than a few crazy drunk passengers. None of them attacked me, but it could get scary.

Compare this to the Fort Hood shooter, whose history and actions showed a clear ideological motivation for his crime. As far as I know, the official explanation is still that he was mentally ill.

There is a huge amount of hysteria being voiced in connection with the mosque. Could we have some rationality? Here are a few good reasons not to build it at that location:

• It will make a significant number of the 9/11 families unhappy
• It will serve as a symbol of victory to radical Islamists, and be a selling point for the radical viewpoint in the ongoing struggle to define normative Islam
• It will worsen relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in New York
• Moving it will not injure Muslims or in any way prevent the free exercise of their religion

People are remarkably ready to accuse mosque opponents of horrible crimes, even of being Republicans. In an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal, Russell Simmons calls opposition to the Mosque “fear-mongering or hate speech”. He mentions Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin in case anybody is insufficiently horrified.

Although a Democrat without political ambitions, I was accused of ‘hate speech’ myself after I pointed out that Imam Abdul Rauf refused to call Hamas a terrorist organization, and that Hamas’ self-described raison d’être was to wipe out the Jewish state and kill its Jewish inhabitants. Hate speech? I’d call it stating facts that are highly relevant to the question — which we are entitled to ask — of who Imam Abdul Rauf really is.

Here’s another point which has been forgotten in the controversy: insofar as Islam includes a blueprint (sharia) for social and political relationships, law, economic activity, etc. and prescribes this blueprint as the best possible form of social organization, everybody — Muslims and non-Muslims — has a stake in deciding to follow the prescription or not. This is a legitimate matter for discussion.

Additionally, the radical interpretation of Islam — which is rapidly gaining ground in the world — has a very aggressive and ambitious political program.  It is by no means the province of a few extremists, but promoted by the Muslim Brotherhood and affiliates among Sunnis, and Iran among Shiites. One might even say it seeks world domination. Talking about this is not hate speech, but rather a conversation that could bear on our culture’s self-preservation.

We had our own “Islamophobic hate crime” a few miles up the road from here in Madera, where some anti-Muslim signs were posted at an Islamic center. This behavior was mean and stupid, and while probably the act of harmless adolescents… one never knows.

But this kind of thing, or mentally ill college students, should not distract us from a serious consideration of  Islam, radical Islam, and its relationship to Western culture.

Technorati Tags: Islam, Ground Zero Mosque

The rules for 501 (c)(3) tax status — which allows the donations of US citizens to a non-profit organization to be tax-deductible — are remarkably lax. According to the IRS,

To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.

There is no requirement that a charity not take political stands, only that it is not ‘substantially’ a lobbying organization and that it does not support or attack specific candidates.

So, for example, the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim Students Association, the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the Council on American-Islamic Relations all can accept tax-deductible contributions. So can the left-wing Americans for Peace Now, Meretz USA, and even the relatively extreme Jewish Voice for Peace.

Incredibly, If Americans Knew, a group dedicated to demonizing the state of Israel is also a proud holder of 501(c)(3) status. And — to my further astonishment — so is Code Pink, whose members get arrested at anti-military demonstrations, support boycott-divestment-sanctions against Israel, invade the homes of people they don’t like, etc.

While the IRS seems to have drawn the line at Free Gaza — the people that organize the ‘flotillas’ to Gaza — they continue to allow a group called “American Educational Trust” which is a 501 (c)(3) to accept contributions and pass them on!

But there is apparently a problem for pro-Israel organizations:

Z STREET, a pro-Israel non-profit corporation, filed a lawsuit in federal court today charging that the IRS violated the organization’s First Amendment rights.  The suit was filed after Z STREET was told by an IRS official that its application for tax-exempt status has been delayed because an IRS policy requires consideration of whether a group’s views on Israel differ from those of the current Administration.

“Not only is it patently un-American but it is also a clear violation of the First Amendment for a government agency to penalize an organization because of its political position on Israel or anything else,” said Z STREET president Lori Lowenthal Marcus, a former First Amendment lawyer.   “This situation is the same as if the government denied a driver’s license to people because they were Republicans or Democrats. It goes against everything for which our country stands.”

Z STREET filed for tax-exempt status in January of this year and, despite having met all of the requirements for grant of this status, the application has been stalled.  An IRS agent told Z STREET’s lawyers that the application was delayed because of a Special Israel Policy that requires greater scrutiny of   organizations which have to do with Israel, in part to determine whether they espouse positions on Israel contrary to those of the current Administration. [From a Z Street press release. My emphasis]

I wonder if Code Pink’s views “differ from those of the current administration?”  Let’s see:

Code Pink demonstrator, San Francisco 2008

Even the present administration should be embarrassed by this one!

Your tax dollars at work. Berkeley, 2007.

First amendment, anyone?

Technorati Tags: Z-Street, First Amendment, IRS, Code Pink, Israel

Although the “direct talks” between Israel and the Palestinian Authority cannot possibly lead to a peace agreement — here’s a good explanation of why — many observers think they are at least harmless.

They aren’t. The trouble is that the non-existent possibility of success will be used — is already being used — as a club to beat Israel. For example:

With the imminent onset of long-sought direct talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the US administration expects that neither side will take any measure to poison the atmosphere or derail the talks, a senior American official said on Tuesday.

The official, in a briefing in Jerusalem with Israeli journalists, was asked repeatedly, and in various permeations, how the administration would react to an end to the settlement housing-start moratorium on September 26. The official would not answer directly, but only repeated the mantra about Washington expecting that both sides not do anything to harm the atmosphere or derail the talks. The official then went to Ramallah for a similar briefing with Palestinian reporters.

On Monday, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the moratorium issue would be a topic of discussion when Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and PA President Mahmoud Abbas meet with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to launch the direct talks next Thursday in Washington.

“We are very mindful of the Palestinian position and once we’re now into direct negotiations, we expect that both parties will do everything within their power to create an environment for those negotiations to continue constructively,” Crowley said when asked about the Palestinian threat to quit the talks if the moratorium was not renewed.

In other words, the US will not permit the official building freeze in Judea/Samaria or the unofficial one in East Jerusalem to expire, because that would tend to ‘derail’ the talks (prediction: the phrase ‘derail the talks’ will soon become as popular in administration-speak as ‘bolster Abbas’ and ‘end the settlements’).

And here’s another prediction: the PA will not be required to do anything. You might think that calling Jews apes and pigs would tend to derail things, but you can bet that this kind of vicious incitement will continue. Watch carefully and see. One might also think that the least the PA could do would be to admit that whatever will be left of Israel after the next partition will belong to the Jews, but they won’t even say that.

Once the pointless exercise begins, expect that any form of self-defense by Israel — intercepting new flotillas, shooting back at Hizballah, whatever — will immediately be met with a threat by the PA to leave the talks and American pressure to submit, lest a display of backbone cause a massive derailment, even a train wreck.

There is another problem. This is not the more-or-less toothless Bush Administration, or Bill Clinton, who quite honestly thought he could bring peace to the Middle East.

This is a White House suffused by anti-Zionist ideology whose objective is to get Israel back to the 1949 armistice lines regardless of the consequences for Israel’s security. We can expect that there will be an attempt to create a Palestinian state by fiat, while Israel’s security concerns will be met with some form of international guarantees. As has always happened in the past — the most recent example is UNSC resolution 1701, which was supposed to prevent Hizballah from rearming — such guarantees will prove to be worthless. Goodbye peace, hello war.

I assume that PM Netanyahu got into this in return for promises regarding American action against the Iranian nuclear program, which Jerusalem views as a much bigger threat than anything else. It remains to be seen if the US will live up to this commitment. Precedents aren’t good, starting with the US promise in 1956 to guarantee free passage for Israel in the Strait of Tiran, up to the promises made by President Bush to PM Sharon in 2004.

Frankly, if Jewish and Israeli history teaches us anything at all, it is that we have to rely on ourselves — not our friends, and even less so those who manifestly are not our friends. And that includes the present US administration.

Update [25 Aug 1635 PDT]: I said to watch carefully for continued incitement by the PA. Well, we didn’t have to wait long!

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinian Authority, direct talks, Obama Administration

…everyone knows what a two-state solution looks like and the general formula for getting there… the tough thing is marshaling the necessary political will. — James A. Baker, one of the original sources of the Administration’s policy to force Israel and the Palestinian Authority into a ‘peace’ agreement, February 2010

So, it starts again. The US will sit the Israeli PM down with a Palestinian Arab ‘leader’ who represents almost no one, and whose regime is paid for by the US and protected by the IDF. Since its inception said regime has told its people that Jews are descended from monkeys and pigs, that the greatest Palestinian heroes are terrorists who murder Jewish children, that Palestinian children should aspire to martyrdom, and that in the future Israel will be destroyed and replaced by an Arab state.

This Palestinian Authority (PA) has said over and over that it will not recognize Israel as a state belonging to the Jewish people. It demands a ‘right of return’ to Israel for Arab ‘refugees’ and requires that any peace agreement must include a transfer of all the area of the Palestinian Mandate east of the 1949 armistice line, including all of East Jerusalem. It insists that every Jewish resident of this area be removed, while calling Arabs who live in Israel the ‘owners’ of the land.

Israel is prepared to agree to a sovereign Palestinian state in the region, although with a few limitations (demilitarization, retaining control of airspace, security presence in the Jordan Valley, etc). One would think that if the PA actually wanted a state, they would agree. After all, if ‘Palestine’ can live peacefully alongside Israel, one would expect that ultimately the restrictions would be lifted. Of course the PA rejects them out of hand.

Speaking of Palestinian demands, Israel has some demands too. For example, that an agreement recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, that so-called ‘refugees’ be resettled in ‘Palestine’ or Arab nations and that the Palestinians will finally agree to end their claims against Israel — to end the conflict.

Naturally, the PA categorically rejects all of these. It is probably true that no Palestinian leader could accept them and survive, politically or physically.

Finally (Barry Rubin calls this the “wooly mammoth in the living room”) there is Hamas, which controls all of the Gaza strip (40% of the Palestinian population) and has many friends in the area supposedly governed by the PA. Hamas doesn’t agree that Jews can be allowed to live anywhere in the Middle East, is committed to violent genocide and supported by Iran. They also oppose the PA — they killed a bunch of the Fatah opposition in 2005 when they took over Gaza — and would happily take over all of Judea/Samaria as well.

Only the IDF prevents them from doing that today. Who will protect a sovereign ‘Palestine’? The PA army being trained by the US? That plan is working so well in Iraq and Afghanistan, isn’t it! Or maybe the UN? Just look at the result of that approach in Lebanon. If Hamas takes over, what stops them from inviting in Syrian or Iranian forces? This is a formula for a bloody regional war.

Please, tell me again what “everyone knows.”

There is an asymmetry between the Israeli and Palestinian positions. Israel says “we think the Palestinian Arabs have as much of a right to a state as we do, and we’re prepared to compromise as long as it doesn’t mean committing suicide.” The PA, on the other hand — and I’m not even referring to Hamas here — thinks that a Jewish state is historically illegitimate, and it’s time for the US and the international community to give it over to its ‘rightful owners’.

The premise that the Palestinian Arabs have a ‘right’ to anything, given the historical record, is actually pretty dubious. But Israel has moved a long way toward an accommodation, even despite the vicious war of 2001-2003 — some call it the ‘Oslo war‘ — in which the Palestinians demonstrated their contempt for a previous offer of a sovereign state.

The difference in Israeli and Palestinian outlooks is nicely caught by Rubin, who writes,

Is “comprehensive peace” in the interest “of all people in the region?” [the words of US envoy George Mitchell] On one level that seems obvious but on the level of actual reality it is completely false. Consider this: having peace in Europe was arguably in the interests of everyone at all times between, say, between 1337 (start of the Hundred Year’s War between England and France) and 1990 (the Cold War’s end), yet nonetheless there wasn’t peace much of the time.

Why is that? Because there were ideologies, nations, and leaders who thought there was something more important than peace: gains, victories, land, glory, the will of the Creator of the Universe, and other things. Moreover, they perceived that triumph was easy and that they could have everything they wanted. This worldview does not characterize the position today of, at most, more than 10 percent of Israelis (or Americans and Europeans for that matter) but does characterize the position of more than 95 percent of Arabs, Middle East Muslims, and Palestinians.

Rubin thinks that the US is naive about the way in which ideology drives the Muslim nations of the Middle East, and projects Western views of interests where they are inapplicable:

An element of this doctrinaire, deterministic “even-handedness” and “mirror-imaging” practices by Western governments today is to misunderstand much about the Middle East (and Israel as well) to the point that they fail in their efforts and stumble into crises. This point also applies to their understandings of Islamism, Iran’s ambitions, the internal problems of Iraq and Afghanistan, and much more. These mistakes cost lives and produce strategic disasters.

Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hizballah, and most of the PA’s own Fatah rulers don’t think a “comprehensive peace” is in the interests of Palestinians, much less all the peoples of the region. They believe that anyone who does think so should be murdered. They are certain that the elimination of Israel, which they do not number among the “peoples of the region” is in everyone’s interest.

I think this is true to a great extent, but I’m a bit more cynical. I think that US officials understand the Palestinian Arabs better than they let on. I believe that much of what appears to be foolish naivete is actually pap for public consumption, masking the consistent US policy — strongly influenced by Saudi Arabia — to shrink Israel to 1949 lines with little regard for the cost to Israel’s security (think about James A. Baker’s business relationship with the Saudis).

These negotiations have very little upside for Israel. They are very unlikely to lead to a peace agreement for the reasons above. And if somehow there were an agreement it, would make the threat of a Hamas takeover and subsequent war greater rather than less. Although the obstacles to peace are primarily on the Palestinian side, efforts will be made — by the Arabs and anti-Israel elements in the US and Europe — to blame Israel, and to force concessions that at best will weaken her, and at worst will get people killed.

Here’s my advice for Israeli negotiators in what is probably a no-win situation: don’t give up anything without getting something in return. When they demand an extension on the freeze on construction east of the armistice line, you demand recognition that Israel is the state of the Jewish people.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinian Authority, direct talks