FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו

Everyone’s all over John Hagee. McCain’s dumped him, the fake Zionists at J Street are congratulating themselves, and even real Zionist Ami Isseroff thinks Hagee’s support is Bad For The Jews.

Here’s part of what Hagee allegedly said that caused all the excitement:

How did [the Holocaust] happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel…

Today Israel is back in the land and they are at Ezekiel 37 and 8. They are physically alive but they’re not spiritually alive. Now how is God going to cause the Jewish people to come SPIRITUALLY alive and say “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He is God?”

[partial audio of the sermon is here]

There are two supposedly offensive statements here. One is that the Holocaust was ordained by God, and the other is that the Jews are “not spiritually alive”, which is normally quoted as “Hagee said the Jews are spiritually dead” because it sounds more antisemitic.

Let’s look at the first part. Hagee, like many philosophers and theologians before him, is grappling with the problem of evil. One way to express it is to say that the following three statements can’t all be true:

• There is evil in the world
• God is all-powerful
• God is perfectly good

Hagee can’t reject the second and third statements, so he works on the first one. Evil exists, but its consequences are a greater good, in this case a good so all-encompassing — the salvation of humanity — that on balance the evil is wiped out.

This is not the solution that I would choose, but in the context of his end-times theology it’s the right one. In any event it is far from saying that Hitler was doing God’s work, as some have described it, except in the trivial sense that everything that happens ultimately ends up doing God’s work.

The fact that Pastor Hagee thinks as he does should not be a major revelation; anyone who understands the theology behind his brand of Christianity would know this, just as nobody should be surprised that the Pope wants Catholics to pray for the souls of Jews.

The reference to the Jewish people not being spiritually alive most likely (since his explanation does not appear in the audio snippet) means that the second coming will be required to make them so; again, part of his end-times theology and something that probably applies to everyone, or at least everyone who hasn’t accepted Jesus yet.

The J Street folks and Hagee’s other critics probably don’t grapple much with the problem of evil, because they have a far less concrete idea of God than Hagee. But the biggest problem is this: Pastor Hagee and the Pope believe that their religion is universal and objectively true.

Secular and almost-secular people who believe that no religion has factual content — that religions are pragmatic ethical systems with ontological trappings, psychological phenomena, moral crutches, superstition, myths, stories, cultural artifacts, etc. — are infuriated by this point of view, although it’s interesting that they don’t seem to object as much to Islam, which shares this characteristic, as they do to Pastor Hagee’s fundamentalism.

And of course J Street and others are happy to tap into this righteous indignation to embarrass the Republican candidate.

But real religious tolerance would include respect and understanding for those who see their beliefs as true as well as for those who think that religion is in essence bunk, as long as the ‘fundamentalists’ in question don’t try to enforce their point of view by violence.

From my point of view, I far prefer Hagee’s support and Catholic prayers to Hamas’ genocidal ideology. Don’t you?

Technorati Tags: Hagee, J Street, Hitler, Holocaust, McCain

Most of you have probably seen this story. A popular retail chain in the US was selling a t-shirt showing a Palestinian child-terrorist holding an AK-47, along with maps of the territories and a PLO flag. Pro-Israeli people complained, the chain stopped selling the shirt.

This is actually the third such controversy for this retailer (you can google around to figure out which one; I don’t want to give the bastards a free ad). They previously were taken to task for selling a kafiya which they sweetly called an ‘anti-war scarf’. And before that, they had a shirt with the words “Everybody loves a Jewish girl” and pictures of dollar signs and shopping bags.

What interested me were some of the reactions.

“All fashion is political in nature. Since most people today aren’t directly involved in politics, fashion is a good way to reach people and raise their awareness about the Israeli occupation,” argued Sami Zeibak, a Palestinian fashion journalist living in Tel Aviv.

“Jewish people should not be offended by this because it is not anti-Jewish and not anti-Israel, it is anti-occupation. — Ha’aretz

Right, Sami, tell it to the relatives of the thousands of victims of Palestinian terrorism before the occupation of 1967. Or to the people getting hit today by Qassams coming from Free Palestinian Non-occupied Hamastan (Gaza).

There is a stylized version of the word “VICTIMIZED” at the bottom of the design. Is it not simply true that some Palestinians and especially Palestinian children are victims of this terrible conflict? I am of the opinion they are. — Rick Klotz, owner of the company that makes the shirts

Hmm, that’s good. So the shirt is actually anti-terrorism? It looks more like a propaganda poster to me, and the line through the word ‘victimized’ implies that the child is not victimized. But Rick, how do you spin this one (picture at right)? Yes, those were definitely the good ol’ days, getting paid by the Soviets to destabilize governments and kill people in the name of anti-imperialism.

By the way, Rick’s site also hosts a blog called “The world’s got problems” which could be subtitled “a really sophomoric left-wing look at current events for pre-teens”. ‘Problems’ include cyclones, Bush, Hillary, and the Iraq war, while the writer seems to approve of Barack Obama.

Interestingly, some anti-shirt people are not opposed to them because they are pro-terrorism, but because the people who wear them are not real terrorists. “Posers! They pay $28 for a shirt and think they’re somebody”, wrote one blogger whose link I’ve lost. I agree.

Technorati Tags: victimized, t-shirt, Palestinian child abuse, terrorism

Being in California means that interesting events in the Mideast often happen while I’m asleep. For example, this is what I awoke to today:

Hours after the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) announced that Israel and Syria had begun indirect peace talks, the PMO denied Wednesday a statement by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem to the effect that Damascus received commitments for an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights up to the June 4, 1967 border during Turkish-brokered indirect talks.

“As (Prime Minister Ehud) Olmert has said in the past, Syria knows what Israel demands of it and Israel knows what Syria expects it to do,” officials in the PMO said.

“We received commitments for a withdrawal from the Golan to the June 4, 1967 line,” Moallem had told AFP during a visit to Bahrain. “This is not new. It started since Rabin’s pledge [for a pullout] in 1993, and all subsequent Israeli prime ministers abided by it.” — Jerusalem Post

It’s understood that “what Israel demands” is that Syria stop supporting Hezbollah and Hamas, and in some sense move away from Iran.

In any event, Moaellem may be correct. Dennis Ross (The Missing Peace: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004) writes,

To break the stalemate [US negotiator Edward Djerejian] tried to see if Syria would engage on the basis of hypotheticals — e.g., assume you get full withdrawal, how would you respond on peace and security — but this effort too was unavailing. The Syrian negotiators would not budge. [p.100]

But by July of 1992, Rabin felt that the ‘Oslo track’ with the Palestinians was not going to bear fruit, so he turned to the ‘Syrian track’. He approached the American negotiators with the proposal that Israel would ‘withdraw fully’ from the Golan if Syria would agree to a full normalization of relations, satisfactory security arrangements, and a guarantee of Israel’s water rights. [Ross, p.111]

Rabin insisted that this be kept confidential, and the Americans placed it in their ‘pocket’ until such time as an agreement could be made on all the issues at once. That way, neither Israel nor Syria would be seen as making an offer without getting something in return. This became known as the “Syrian pocket”.

Negotiations with Hafez al-Assad continued in an on-and-off manner, mostly over the precise interpretation of ‘full withdrawal’. But the ‘pocket’ did not go away. When negotiations finally broke off in 2000 for various reasons including the ill health of Assad, the differences over full withdrawal measured in the hundreds of meters.

So Moallem believes that the pocket is still operative.

But now is a particularly unlikely time for a Syria-Israel peace treaty, and one would be very dangerous to Israel at this point.

1) The loss of the Golan would put Israel at a strategic disadvantage at a time of great military tension. In addition to its importance in a ground war, many Israeli towns, kibbutzim and moshavim would be placed in range of small arms fire, not to mention mortars and very short-range rockets against which — as we’ve seen in Gaza — there is almost no defense.

Syria has recently undergone a huge military buildup, funded by Iran, especially of its strategic rocket forces. In addition, Hezbollah has just formalized its hold over the Lebanese government, gaining veto power and other concessions. There is now nothing to prevent Hezbollah from deploying wherever it wants and making use of the resources of the Lebanese army in any way that it wishes.

Both Hezbollah and Syria believe that the 2006 war shows that Israel can be beaten — or at least deterred — and both have recently made threatening gestures, including the movement of Syrian troops to border areas. It seems as though Bashar al-Assad sees the present talks with Israel more as the presentation of an ultimatum than as a peace process.

2) There are 33 Israeli settlements on the Golan with about 18,000 residents. This is more than twice the population of the Gaza settlements that were abandoned. Many of the former Gaza residents still have not been resettled, and the costs of the withdrawal — both monetary and social — have been enormous. Any government that tried to withdraw from the Golan would face huge opposition from the populace and even the army.

3) PM Olmert is in serious legal trouble, facing multiple charges of bribery and corruption, and new allegations against him arise every day. He definitely does not have the support of a majority of Israelis and he has zero moral authority, certainly not to give up territory.

4) Israel’s conditions are unenforceable. Has Syria obeyed UN resolution 1701, which forbids weapons shipments to Hezbollah? Why should she be more likely to keep an agreement with Israel, especially since Hezbollah and Lebanon are now more indistinguishable than ever? And is it realistic to expect Syria to cut ties with Iran?

This is not an agreement that Israel can afford to make; indeed it’s not one that the government is even capable of making. It will not happen.

So it’s particularly unfortunate that PM Olmert, for whatever reason, allowed the process to get this far and thereby created an opportunity for Israel’s detractors to cast her as the obstacle to peace in the region when the talks fall apart.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Syria, Golan heights

News item:

The White House on Tuesday flatly denied an [Israeli] Army Radio report that claimed US President George W. Bush intends to attack Iran before the end of his term. It said that while the military option had not been taken off the table, the Administration preferred to resolve concerns about Iran’s push for a nuclear weapon “through peaceful diplomatic means.”

Army Radio had quoted a top official in Jerusalem claiming that a senior member in the entourage of President Bush, who concluded a trip to Israel last week, had said in a closed meeting here that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were of the opinion that military action against Iran was called for. — Jerusalem Post

The report went on to say that the success of Hezbollah in tightening its grip on Lebanon was “evidence of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s growing influence”.

I tend to believe the original report. A nuclear Iran really is a threat to American interests. The cornerstone of US Mideast policy is Saudi Arabia, which is also the center of Sunni Islam. Iran is challenging the Saudis both in a geopolitical and religious sense, extending its sphere of influence to include Syria and Lebanon, and has the US tied down in Iraq. All this has been accomplished without nuclear weapons; imagine how much worse the situation would be if Iran had a nuclear deterrent and threat.

It is obvious that diplomacy has been ineffective in stopping or even slowing Iran’s progress, primarily because of Iran’s influence on its oil purchasers. However, just because a nation cannot afford to join a diplomatic offensive does not mean that it would not quietly applaud a unilateral US military action, which could be blamed on the supposedly regressive George Bush and Dick Cheney.

There are powerful forces among American policymakers who would oppose military action. But I don’t think they are as strong as the Saudi-aligned faction. So, although I’ve said in the past that US military action against Iran is unlikely, I am not so sure any longer.

If it should come to pass, Ahmadinejad’s threats against Israel will likely be cited as one of the reasons. But don’t kid yourself — if the US really cared about Israel’s security, we wouldn’t be arming Fatah. The real drive for an American attack on Iran is coming from Riyadh.

Technorati Tags: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iranian nuclear program

Israel has now admitted publicly that it is negotiating with Hamas. The Hebrew phrase for negotiations is masa umatan, probably best translated as “give and take”, in which each side expects to get something in return for giving up something else.

Israel wants to get kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit and wants an end to rocket attacks. Hamas wants a respite from Israeli retaliation every time one of its rockets kills somebody, and freedom to arm and train its troops — they are developing an army, not just a terrorist gang — and to build fortifications, dig tunnels, etc. It also wants an undetermined number of prisoners, including those who have killed Israelis, released. And it would like to forestall an IDF incursion into Gaza.

Israeli officials insist that any truce must also prohibit arms smuggling and training of military personnel in Iran, etc.

There have been other, more informal cease-fire agreements. What generally happens is that the rockets get a return address of Islamic Jihad or some other faction instead of Hamas for a while, and ultimately Hamas finds an Israeli action to use as a pretext to restart official hostilities.

There have been other prisoner exchanges, in which a few Israelis are exchanged for a large number of Arabs. This time the Israeli government has expressly changed the criteria for who can be released to include murderers.

A truce now would be disadvantageous for Israel. Although Gilad Schalit might be returned, Hamas’ demands for a prisoner release — at least as they have been expressed before, including as many as 1,500 prisoners — would be an unacceptable precedent, a statement that murder is permissible, and an invitation to kidnap more Israelis.

The provisions prohibiting arms smuggling and other activities would be unenforceable unless Israel were prepared to assume control of the border between Gaza and Egypt, which could only occur after an incursion to secure this area. Nobody else — not the EU, not NATO, not Egypt, not the PA — is going to risk their own people in order to protect Israel.

Israel is today negotiating from a position of weakness. The proposed truce would be an immediate loss for Israel, and there is no way to enforce longer-term provisions.

A more rational approach would be to first invade Gaza, destroy as much of the Hamas infrastructure — both physical and human — as possible, and retake the area around the Gaza-Egypt border. Then an agreement would have some chance of lasting more than a couple of weeks.

In discussing this, we should not lose sight of the nature of Hamas: a terrorist organization which is frankly genocidal in its aspirations. Those Gazans who do not directly support Hamas and its goals are being held hostage to them. Insofar as there are humanitarian or human rights considerations, the party that should be held to account is Hamas, not Israel.

If the world had an interest in the welfare of the Gaza population, it would act to stop aggression from Hamas and to remove this regime — which violates every principle of civilized behavior — from power. In the absence of such action, Israel has a responsibility to protect her own population.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Hamas, Gaza