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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

By Vic Rosenthal

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