FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו

News item:

British spokesman Martin Day said in an interview in Dubai with Al-Arabiya television last week that the British government was “taking practical steps towards freezing settlement activities.”

“For instance,” Day said, “we finance projects aimed at halting settlement activities. One of these projects seeks to build new Palestinian neighborhoods in east Jerusalem and save Palestinian houses from demolition.”

In addition, Day said in an Arabic interview, “we also finance organizations that monitor settlement activities.”

He further stated that “products from the settlements do not enjoy preferential custom duties that we offer to products coming from Israel. In light of this, we can say that we are taking effective and practical steps against settlement activities…”

Karen Kaufman, the British Embassy’s spokesman in Tel Aviv, said … that the British government was “not involved in the actual construction of new Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.”

“The UK is spending £450,000 over 4 years to support projects in east Jerusalem and the West Bank that help Palestinians better understand and effectively use the Israeli planning laws to gain permission both retrospectively for existing homes, and prospectively for new homes on their side of the Green Line,” she said.

Of course interference in internal affairs of sovereign states is an everyday thing on the part of ‘great powers’ and even formerly great ones like the UK, but what is surprising is the way they openly admit it.

The point is obviously to show contempt for the sovereignty of the Jewish state built on land that they once controlled. The Brits never did get over the way those uppity Jews didn’t allow them to hand it all over to the Arabs that they so admired, after they’d gotten tired of the idea of the Jewish National Home that foolish old Balfour had gotten them into.

They did their best by lopping off some 80% of the mandate and giving it to the Arabs in the form of Transjordan, and then they tried to finish the job by equipping, training and leading the Arab Legion during the War of Independence. If it hadn’t been for the Legion the Jews certainly would have been able to hold the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and Gush Etzion in 1948.

But the British aren’t the only Europeans that are paying to subvert the state of Israel. As everyone knows, there are a multiplicty of non-profit organizations that seem to live only to bash Israel and collect ‘evidence’ for ‘lawfare‘ — the use of the mechanisms of international law to harass a nation as part of a wider assault which may also have diplomatic and military components.

Recently, the Israeli group “Breaking the Silence” has been in the news for presenting ‘testimony’ from IDF soldiers of Israeli ‘war crimes’. Such ‘testimony’ has so far been presented in anonymous form to the media, so that it cannot be checked but do damage nevertheless. Legal claims will undoubtedly follow. Guess who funds “Breaking the Silence?”

On Wednesday, Breaking the Silence released a report including testimonies from 26 unnamed soldiers who participated in the campaign and which claimed that the IDF used Gazans as human shields, improperly fired incendiary white phosphorous shells over civilian areas and used overwhelming firepower that caused needless deaths and destruction.

On Thursday, military sources and NGO Monitor – a Jerusalem-based research organization – raised suspicions regarding Breaking the Silence’s setup as a nonprofit limited company and not an amuta, or nonprofit organization. The difference is that an amuta is required by law to publicly declare the identity of its donors. A limited company is not always required to do so…

In response to the claims, Breaking the Silence presented the Post with its donor list for 2008. The British Embassy in Tel Aviv gave the organization NIS 226,589; the Dutch Embassy donated €19,999; and the European Union gave Breaking the Silence €43,514. — Jerusalem Post [my emphasis]

Of course this is only the tip of the iceberg. Another recent example is the fund-raising done by Human Rights Watch in Saudi Arabia, where it received funds from individuals connected with the regime. There are many such organizations, each with their  own specialty, and each receiving funds directly or indirectly from governments who wish to delegitimize Israel and in particular, hamstring her ability to defend herself.

Nothing seems quite so ironic as Israel’s enemies talking about Israel Lobbies and Zionist conspiracies, while in fact — to borrow a turn of phrase used by Hillary Clinton during her husband’s presidency — there is a vast anti-Israel conspiracy targeting the Jewish state.

Technorati Tags: Israel, anti-Zionist conspiracy

Barack Obama may yet succeed in doing what no Republican has yet come close to doing, which is to create Republican Jews (yes, some Jews voted for Reagan, but because of his personal magnetism, not his ideology. And then they went back to voting Democratic).

There’s no question that Obama’s approach to Israel has turned off pro-Israel Jews. Starting with the Cairo speech, in which he equated the Palestinian ‘pursuit of a homeland’ to the Holocaust, foundering through the US reneging on commitments to allow building within existing settlements, and coming apart on the rocks of his apparent acceptance of an Iranian bomb, Obama’s Israel policy has been a shipwreck. And it’s obvious that this is just fine with the majority of the Democratic Party that elected him.

Of course not all Jews are Zionists, and there is probably no hope for the anti-Israel J Street — who opposed Israel’s military action in Gaza and even endorsed a performance of the antisemitic play “Seven Jewish Children”. But some relatively centrist Jewish Democrats are beginning to have second thoughts about Mr. Obama.

Recently, the Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, Alan Solow — a Chicago native who was a long-time Obama backer — publicly criticized Obama’s stance on Jewish building in Jerusalem. Although Solow was present at Obama’s recent meeting with Jewish leaders, apparently he was not satisfied with the explanations he received.

Maybe the Obamacrats have calculated that few American Jews today, especially young ones, are enthusiastic supporters of Israel. But keep in mind that while the J Street types are vocal in their anti-Zionism, my guess is that the ‘silent majority’ of American Jews still does not want an American policy which is actively hostile to the Jewish state. And that is how the Obama Administration, increasingly, appears.

What is keeping these Jews on the Democratic side today are domestic issues, and of course the impression the Republicans give of hopeless incompetence. It will be interesting to see how far Obama has to go in a pro-Arab anti-Israel direction to cause them to jump.

Technorati Tags: Obama, Jews, Israel

The ‘Rogotka’ (Russian and Hebrew slang for ‘slingshot’) at 32 Yitzhak Sadeh St. in Tel Aviv is described as a vegan bar run by an ‘anarchist collective’. It does not serve products from ‘settlements’ and it does not serve anyone wearing an IDF uniform.

The following appeared on the Israeli blog “The Muqata”:

IDF Uniforms are associated with oppression and genocide, and the IDF’s violence is the reason for all violence in Israel, explained the club’s workers.

The ground rules of the club are clear: Naturalism, Pluralism, and no IDF uniforms — anyone can visit the club on Yitzchak Sadeh street in Tel-Aviv, with any clothing style, except for IDF uniforms.

Two IDF combat soldiers who visited the club last week were forbidden entry. They were told they could switch to civilian clothes and come in, but it was forbidden to wear uniforms inside.

“It’s nothing personal, but ideological. Your uniforms symbolize genocide and violence.” they were told by club employees and guests.

One of the soldiers took off his IDF issued shirt, but his Unit’s t-shirt didn’t pass muster either…and they were told to leave.

IDF radio sent a solider from an elite unit to validate the claims. As soon as he sat down at the bar, employees came over to him and demanded that he leave.

“Your shirt symbolizes sh&^ and disgust,” he was told, “and as soon as I see your shirt, it hurts me. So before I hurt you, I’m asking you to leave.”

The elite combat solider replied, “I kill myself to protect you and you’re throwing me out?”

Their response: “They pay you half of what you deserve. You aren’t killing yourself. They are taking advantage of you, and you’re a slave to the army…now leave.” (source, translated from IDF radio via rotter)

Maybe I’m hopelessly naive, but this is beyond shocking.

Here are about 5 million Jews surrounded by hundreds of millions of Arabs that would like to invade and destroy Israel, including — believe it or not — Tel Aviv. Think about what a victorious Arab army would do in Tel Aviv. You don’t need a lot of imagination, just think about the pogroms in Tzfat, Hebron, etc. and multiply them by a few hundred thousand. Think of the Russians in Berlin in 1945.

They would do this in a minute except for one thing: the IDF. Can anyone doubt this?

So this ‘anarchist collective’, who probably dodged the draft themselves and don’t plan for their sons and daughters to serve, who benefit from the Jewish state and the tiny bubble of peace, freedom and prosperity that it struggles to maintain in the midst of dictatorships and kingdoms where women are property, homosexuals are hanged and Jews are not allowed — these parasitic scum have the chutzpah to refuse to serve anyone in an IDF uniform?

The problem is that the IDF has done too good a job, and the parasites can live in Tel Aviv as if it were San Francisco. But even in San Francisco, how long would a nightclub that refused to serve US servicemen in uniform last?

How can this be allowed to continue?

Technorati Tags: Tel Aviv, IDF

Israel’s President Shimon Peres met with US negotiator George Mitchell today, and if we can take Mitchell at his word, there is good news and bad news. First the good news that Mitchell understands that concessions on one side only are not enough:

“Israel has taken meaningful steps in the West Bank,” said Mitchell, alluding to the dismantling of 25 checkpoints, thereby allowing the Palestinians greater freedom of movement and easier accessibility to various destinations.

Referring to his visits with other leaders in the region, Mitchell said that he had conveyed the message that steps must now be taken by Arab States to fulfill the promise of the Arab peace initiative.

It’s also good news if the US understands the Arab (or Saudi) Initiative as a starting point for negotiations and not simply a ‘take it or leave it’ offer, because as it is it’s no more than a demand for Israel to accept all responsibility for the conflict and pay all of the price for a doubtful ‘peace’.

The bad news, though, is that the US is either remarkably naive about the Palestinians or doesn’t care about the ultimate outcome as long as Israel withdraws from the West Bank:

Anticipating the day when there would be “a state of Palestine” Mitchell envisaged that it would prove to be “a responsible neighbor to Israel…”

In discussions with US Security Coordinator for the Palestinian Authority and Israel General Keith Dayton, Peres said, Dayton had estimated that the Palestinians should be capable of self government by 2011.

The only kind of self-government the Palestinians are capable of today is the kind they have in Gaza, where Hamas has established totalitarian rule and maintains a state of war with Israel. Today,

• The Fatah faction whose ‘security’ forces Gen. Dayton is arming and training has no popular support among Palestinians, who prefer Hamas if anyone.

• Even this ‘moderate’ faction refuses to accept that Israel belongs to the Jewish people, demands a ‘right of return’ for Arab ‘refugees’ and in fact is now saying that they don’t really recognize Israel and that ‘armed struggle’ will continue. Some responsible neighbor they will be!

Dayton may think that by 2011 his pet Palestinians will have enough men under arms (the Palestinian authority already has a huge percentage of its population in police and ‘security’ forces) and enough weapons to challenge Hamas, but politically nothing has changed — except the rise of Hamas — since Arafat.

In fact, given the hostility to Israel displayed by Fatah officials when speaking in Arabic, and their political weakness vis-a-vis Hamas, one wonders whether arming them is a good idea.

Peres understood that US President Barack Obama has his own agenda calling for new facts on the ground at a somewhat quicker pace. But speaking with the hindsight of experience, Peres told Mitchell: “You need patience.”

President Kennedy made an audacious promise when he said that the US would land a man on the moon before the end of the decade, and of course we just celebrated the 40th anniversary of this event. Kennedy took the risk of appearing foolish because his competent scientific advisors told him that it was possible.

President Obama also promised that he would do something of monumental significance by ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He is risking more than Kennedy did, because the consequences of bad policy in the Mideast may be a lot worse than just looking foolish. As we have so recently seen, mistakes lead directly to dead Israelis and Palestinians.

But unlike Kennedy, either Obama does not have competent advisors in this area or what they are after is something other than peace with security for Israel.

Technorati Tags: George Mitchell, Israel, Palestinians