FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו

Worse even than the NY Times, possibly on the same level as the UK Guardian, I give you the Los Angeles Times:

Anyone who follows the news is familiar with how this cycle works. It might begin with a Palestinian child dying while stopped at an Israeli army checkpoint on his way to the hospital. In response, an enraged Palestinian shoots into a crowd of Israeli soldiers at a bus stop. To show that it will not tolerate such behavior, an Israeli army helicopter then fires a missile into an apartment building in Gaza, targeting militants but killing civilians as well, after which outraged Palestinians fire a rocket into Israel, which in turn leads the Israelis to tighten whatever embargo or travel restrictions or security rules are in place at the moment. That increases Palestinian rage still further.

Needless to say, the cycle doesn’t end there but continues until, after a while, it becomes completely impossible to say with any authority who began the hostilities or to distinguish actions from reactions. — Editorial, LA Times, 3/14/2011

Is it possible that they still think this way? Leaving aside the fact that the story about the “Palestinian child dying” probably was made up from whole cloth, and that the “enraged Palestinian” was probably a member of an organized terrorist militia, is it possible that they really can’t distinguish between terrorism and efforts to stop it?

Was the Israeli missile fired into a random apartment building like Hamas’ Qassams, or was it aimed at a terrorist operative who was already responsible for the deaths of tens of Israelis, and who was intending to kill more?

Is “Palestinian rage” primarily a reaction to Israeli counter-terror activities or is it fed by the constant antisemitic and anti-Israel propaganda that emanates from Hamas, our ‘partners’ in Fatah and every Arab country? Are Israeli “security rules” punitive retaliation or are they intended to protect Israelis?

You know the answers to all these questions, but the Times has an agenda: to prove that Palestinian Arab society is ‘normal’, and deserves to be given a state taken from the historical Jewish national home.

But Palestinian Arab society is not normal. Its leadership has created a nation in which monsters are venerated, like Samir Kuntar and Dalal Mughrabi.

The editorial continues:

Which is worse — stabbing children to death or building new houses in West Bank settlements? The answer is obvious. But that’s not the point. The point is that no matter how abhorrent the murders are, it serves no purpose to aggravate the provocation that led to them in the first place. How will building more houses for Israelis in the midst of the West Bank, in settlements that are almost universally acknowledged to violate international law, do anything other than keep the crisis going?

I honestly wonder which the writer thought was worse, in his heart of hearts. After all, the children were Jewish ‘settler’ children, international lawbreakers. What would he say after a few beers? But never mind. Let’s deal with the argument:

The vicious murder of the Fogel family was a deliberate act of terrorism, both in the fact and the manner of its commission. The intent was to deter Jews from living in the Land of Israel. The more violent the act, the more effective it is.

One of the first things that you learn in elementary psychology is that if you want to extinguish an unwanted behavior, you have to stop rewarding it. The Times thinks that Israel should give them what they want:

… the Israeli government should be in the business of calming tensions, not stoking them, and of removing obstacles to peace rather than constructing them.

If the response to this crime is the removal of  ‘obstacles’ — settlements, checkpoints, whatever — then there will be more, not less, terrorism. After all, they will see that it gets them what they want.

Let’s give the Arabs credit for rationality, no matter how twisted their expression of it. To stop terrorism, we should make it unproductive for them.

So, therefore, what better response could there be for Israel than to build more homes? And it’s nonviolent!

The Times tells us that settlements are the “provocation” that led to the murders. Here’s another story about similar terrorist murders that took place in 2002:

Kibbutz Metzer is situated near the West Bank in Green line Israel. The Kibbutz was founded in 1953 by Argentinian members of the Hashomer Hatzair movement and is part of the leftist Kibbutz Artzi Federation. Metzer is located east of Hadera in the “triangle” opposite Tul Karm in the the West Bank. The Kibbutz was founded in Green Line Israel. Its members oppose post-1967 expansionism and are leaders in the Israeli Peace movement.

On November 10, 2002 during the Al-Aqsa Intifada, a member of the Palestinian Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (then affiliated with the Tanzim) entered Metzer at night and murdered five people, including two young children and their mother, and the Kibbutz Secretary Itsik. The victims were all shot by one Sirhan Sirhan, who was allegedly rewarded with $20,000 by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and was later killed by Israeli forces.  — Ami Isseroff, “Metzer Massacre”

Not only were the Metzer victims living within the 1949 lines, they favored giving up the territories! I suppose the Times would have found some other “provocation” to account for this atrocity, just as they would have found one for all the pre-1967 terrorism, or for the 1967 war itself.

The truth is that Jews living in the Land of Israel is, and always has been, all the provocation they need.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinian Arabs, terrorism, settlements, LA Times

Egyptian clerics demonstrate against the regime

Today’s Fresno Bee has an editorial — most likely provided by McClatchy Newspapers, which owns the Bee — that could serve as a template for the dangerously uninformed foolishness that is being fed to Americans about what’s happening in Egypt. I’m going to quote it at length:

Events in Egypt are seesawing so quickly it is difficult to assess if the current trajectory points toward gradually escalating violence or a more orderly transition that will end President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule.

Yet here is what is clearly not happening — an Iranian-style Islamic Revolution.

As anyone watching television can see, the demonstrators filling Tahrir Square are not Islamic radicals calling for the equivalent of Ayatollah Khomeini to replace Mubarak. They are people from all walks of life demanding a more democratic form of government.

Many are highly educated, wired to the Internet and obvious admirers of Western institutions. With few exceptions, the banners and slogans of this courageous throng have not focused on religious concerns.

The young English-speaking demonstrators that are interviewed on CNN do not represent a majority of Egyptians — indeed, they are a tiny minority in a country where more than 40% of the population is illiterate in any language (among women, it’s more than half) and where 90% of the women have suffered genital mutilation. These people are not ‘wired to the Internet’ nor are they interviewed on television, but they will play an important role in choosing Egypt’s next government.

Egypt is not Iran. It has a different culture, a different history and a different language. Yet you wouldn’t know that from the blather spewing forth from many commentators, politicians and propagandists in Iran itself.

Of course Egypt is not Iran. Egypt is Sunni, and is Iran’s great rival for influence in the Middle East. But what is common to today’s Egypt and the Iran of 1979 is a well-organized Islamist opposition working to establish a state governed according to Islamic law, which institutionalizes superiority of Muslims over non-Muslims and men over women. Although such a regime might come to power by democratic elections, it would be ruled in a profoundly undemocratic way, by Muslim clerics.

Even the educated people who “admire Western institutions” do not in general like the US or Israel, whom they are prepared to blame for many of their problems. The rhetoric of the Muslim Brotherhood, the most popular Islamic group, has been viciously anti-American and anti-Israel.

The editorial continues:

In a speech Friday, the Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said the protests are “echoes of the voice of the Iranian nation.” Clearly Khamenei hopes the protests will elevate Iran’s stature and influence in the region.

Undoubtedly, Mubarak himself is cheering efforts by U.S. pundits and others to make it seem like Islamist revolutionaries are driving the demonstrations.

Khamenei is gleeful that the Mubarak government, which has been close to the US and has had peaceful, albeit not friendly, relations with Israel, may be replaced by an Islamist regime. He’s for anything that reduces US influence and hurts Israel, although either way Egypt remains Iran’s rival. And of course Mubarak wants support in the US, which he won’t get if the opposition is thought to be democratic.

Indeed, it seems that the demonstrations were not initiated by the Brotherhood or other Islamists. It is probably correct to say that they were primarily sparked by economic issues and frustration with Mubarak’s repressive tactics, and were initially led by representatives of the very small group of well-educated reformers. But this does not mean that the ultimate outcome is likely to be anything but a victory for the Islamists.

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center shows that 59% of Egyptian Muslims agreed that democracy was the preferred form of government, while 22% disagreed. Of 8 Muslim nations surveyed, only Pakistan had a lower percentage (42%). And of the 31% of Egyptians that see a struggle between ‘modernizers’ and ‘fundamentalists’, 59% agree with the ‘fundamentalists’.

Keep in mind also that ‘democracy’ in the Middle East is understood as ‘elections’. Real democracy requires an independent judiciary, a free press, a commitment to protecting the rights of minorities under majority rule, accountability for law enforcement, etc. None of these things exist in Egypt today and will not appear automatically if elections are held.

It’s difficult to say just how many Egyptians would vote for a Muslim Brotherhood slate (Barry Rubin estimates that a joint ticket with a figurehead ‘moderate’ would yield 60%) because there have never been ‘free and fair’ elections in Egypt. However, if the Brotherhood plays any role at all in a government, it is expected to pursue its objective to institute Islamic rule in Egypt.

There is another option. The Egyptian Army and other authoritarian elements may find a way to continue their dominance without Mubarak. Real democracy is probably the least likely outcome.

The editorial concludes:

While there is undoubtedly a risk Egypt could descend into a civil war with uncertain results, that is most likely to happen if Mubarak clings to power and continues to unleash his goon squads against demonstrators.

There’s lots to worry about as Egypt and the Arab world undergo this historic moment of tumult.

Yet fearmongers do U.S. interests no service by embracing ludicrous and malicious analogies.

Actually, civil war is highly unlikely. There is no force strong enough to challenge the army, even the Brotherhood. And the reformers are entirely without power. So either the Brotherhood will take power peacefully and gain army support, or the army will install another conservative regime like Mubarak’s.

This editorial is both insulting — ‘blather’, ‘fearmongers’, ‘ludicrous and malicious’, etc. — and relies on feel-good wish-fulfillment ‘analysis’ based on watching TV rather than looking at actual facts. It does a huge disservice to those who get their news from local sources like the Fresno Bee.

Technorati Tags: Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood, Mubarak, Fresno Bee

Here is today’s example of the abysmal ignorance that characterizes the local press in the USA, from the Milwaukee, Wisconsin Shepherd Express. The story begins,

Can one billboard on Milwaukee’s North Side bring peace to the Middle East?

Not likely, but that’s not the sponsors’ intention. Sister Virgine Lawinger, a Racine Dominican nun and the chair of Friends of Palestine, said the group hopes that the billboard will raise awareness of the ongoing crisis in Palestine and its ripple effect on the Middle East.

And here’s the billboard:

Wisconsin billboard

Bear-witness.net is operated by “Friends of Palestine,” an amalgam of Arab and left-wing anti-Zionist groups. It calls for withdrawal from the territories and Jerusalem, opening the border with Gaza, elimination of Israel’s nuclear deterrent, end of US military aid and a boycott of Israeli products (“until Israel ends the occupation”), and a right of return for the descendants of 1948 Arab refugees.

“Bring peace?” The organization supports the Arab agenda to destroy the Jewish state. The “ongoing crisis” in ‘Palestine’? I’d say the Iranian-financed war against Israel. And the “ripple effect” of helping the anti-Zionist side can only be to bring war, not peace, closer.

This is not a middle-of-the-road ‘liberal’ position. It is a radical anti-Israel one. But the local reporter — and News Editor of the Shepherd Express — who wrote this article, Lisa Kaiser, apparently has no clue. She quotes the organizers without comment, as if they are involved in a charitable enterprise!

“The kind of response that we hope is happening,” Lawinger said, “is that people look at that billboard and perhaps never paid much attention to that issue before, but somewhere in their brain is deposited the thought, ‘Is that so? Why would our government give them all of that money? What’s in it for the U.S.? What’s our interest there?’”

And that is exactly the point. The Shepherd Express has, probably unwittingly, lent its support to the increasingly successful effort of Israel’s enemies to turn the conflict upside down, and to recast the war to destroy the Jewish state that is being waged by the numerically superior and petro-financed Arab states and Iran as the persecution of the powerless Palestinian Arabs by Israel.

It’s the responsibility of the media — even the local media — to educate themselves at least to the point where they can recognize a controversial issue, lest they allow themselves to be used to “deposit thought[s]”.

Technorati Tags: Milwaukee Shepherd Express, Arab-Israeli conflict