FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו

Here’s what you’ll see on the Washington DC Metro (WMATA) in the near future:

According to Canadian Jewish News,

Initiated by a charity called the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, the 46-by-60-inch posters depict an imposing tank pointing its main firing turret at a child with a schoolbag walking along a dirt road.

“Imagine if this were your child’s path to school. Palestinians don’t have to imagine,” the poster states, before continuing to call for an end to U.S. aid for “Israel’s brutal military occupation… paid for by U.S. taxpayers like you.”

CBS Outdoor, the New York-based firm that places in-station advertising for WMATA, at first refused to consider the poster, but eventually relented to pressure from WMATA and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). [my emphasis]

Believe it or not, apparently the IRS feels that the “U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation” is a legitimate charity:

Education for Just Peace in the Middle East, which does business as the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Donations made to the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law [from www.endtheoccupation.org].

So if you are a U.S. taxpayer, you may be paying for aid to Israel (as well as aid to the Palestinians, Egypt, etc.), but you are also paying for these posters!

The ACLU and WMATA argue that this is a legitimate exercise of first-amendment rights. I say that the posters are defamatory of the State of Israel, and should not be permitted for this reason.

Technorati Tags: WMATA, Israel

Iranian PM Ahmadinijad:

“If [the Holocaust] has actually taken place, where did it happen? Why should the Palestinian people become homeless (because of this)? Why should Palestinian children, women and mothers be killed on streets every day for 60 years?”

The president said that these innocent people losing their lives had no role in World War II.

“All of them had been killed in Europe and Palestinian people were not involved in it,” he added. — MEMRI

The assumption is that Israel draws its legitimacy from the Holocaust. But nothing could be farther from the truth. By 1948, the Zionist enterprise in Palestine had been underway for about 60 years. All of the institutions of a state were in place. The League of Nations mandate of 1922 recognized the historic connection of the Jews to the land and the need to create a ‘Jewish National Home’ in Palestine (not in all of Palestine). The Jewish Yishuv in Palestine had built an economy which provided for many more Jews and Arabs than could have lived there if it had not been for Zionism. The Jewish leadership was totally focussed on creating a state, and — as in other areas administered by the colonial powers — it would have happened, Holocaust or no.

The Arab leadership, especially the antisemitic Nazi Haj Amin al-Husseini, refused to agree to any Jewish state anywhere in Palestine, even in the area where there was a clear Jewish majority. This leadership denied the Jews their right to self-determination, denied the legitimacy of the League of Nations mandate, and consistently violated the human rights of the Jews by inciting riots and pogroms, such as the one in Hebron in 1928 in which 67 Jews were murdered and the city ethnically cleansed of its 800 Jews.

In 1937, the British Peel Commission proposed a partition of Palestine into a (small) Jewish and an Arab state. The Zionists accepted it, but the Arabs did not. All subsequent attempts to provide for both Jewish and Arab self-determination, from 1948 through the Clinton/Barak plan of 2000, were rejected by the Arab nations and the Palestinian leadership, as were all attempts to heal the wounds of 1948 by resettling Arab refugees (the Jews resettled their own refugees). In recent years, Yasser Arafat and his cronies stole literally billions of dollars that were intended to help build the infrastructure of a Palestinian state.

So my response to Ahmadinijad is the following: why should the Jewish people continue to suffer from aggressive wars and terrorism because of something that they were not responsible for — the failure of the Arab leadership? The Jews did not refuse any of the partition agreements, the Jews did not prevent a solution to the refugee problem, and the Jews did not impoverish the Palestinian people.

The Arabs and their friends like to turn history upside down, but they can’t change reality.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Arabs, Zionism, Ahmadinijad, Holocaust

In his Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day) address, Israeli PM Olmert said:

We will weigh with great seriousness every diplomatic initiative, we will take advantage of every chance, we will be prepared for far-reaching compromises, and even for very painful concessions, as long as our vital and existential interests are safeguarded, in order to fulfill our burning ambition for peace. — Ha’aretz

To whom is he speaking? Not to a majority of Israelis, who understand that concessions, compromises, withdrawals, and prisoner releases just lead to more of the same. And not to Palestinians or the Arab nations, who know that no matter what compromises Israel makes, they will not be satisfied and there will not be peace.

Here is what the PM of Israel should say:

Insofar as Israel is the legitimate expression of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination, a fully sovereign nation which does not bear the responsibility for the failures of the Arab nations with respect to themselves and the Palestinians and refuses to pay the price for them, I assert the following:

We will not accept phony initiatives or imposed plans. We will strike disproportionally at terrorists and preemptively at any nation that plans to attack us. We passionately desire peace, but we will make no concessions for future promises of peace, only in return for realized peace.

In particular, we demand the immediate release of the hostages held by Hamas and Hezbollah. If they are not released within 12 hours, we will begin taking escalating military action against Hamas and Hezbollah personnel and infrastructure. There will be no prisoner exchanges.

Would this cause a diplomatic and journalistic stir? Of course. And worse, if Israel’s enemies find it necessary to test her resolve. But the forces in the world that want to see Israel gone will be the same before and after. Only now — if Israel were to consistently follow this policy — they would have to adjust their world-view to one in which Israel is a permanent fact. And then maybe from that point we could begin a constructive dialogue for peace.

How would Israelis react to this? I think the reaction of the people to Hezbollah’s attack last summer shows that they are prepared for sacrifice and struggle. What they are not tolerant of is having their sovereignty, their peace, and their self-respect chipped away a little at a time, unrequited concession by unrequited concession.

I waive my copyright; any Israeli PM may use this speech free of charge.

Technorati Tags: Israel

Kate Burton, who was once held hostage by the gangsters of Gaza, has appealed for the release of BBC reporter Alan Johnston. In a classic display of Stockholm syndrome, Burton writes of her own captivity:

I can only say that beyond the actual denial of our freedom, those who held us treated us with the utmost respect, and gave us everything we needed in an attempt to maintain our physical strength as well as our morale and psychological well-being.

Our kidnappers constantly repeated the fact that the respect I had earned in the Gaza community deserved the same respect from them towards us.

Yes, these psychopathic murderers certainly deserve respect. But anyway, now Burton uses the best argument she can muster: let Johnston go because he is on your side, and most importantly — you wouldn’t want to be compared to Israel, would you?

When no-one else was covering the reality of what is going on in your world, Alan was there.

He described the sonic booms after the disengagement, the electricity shortages after the power plant was hit, the constant and never-ending closures that affect every part of your lives, the massacres, the medical patients suffering at Rafah crossing…

He was telling your entire story to the world, piece by piece, and now there is no-one left to tell it.

If you continue targeting foreigners such as Alan Johnston I fear you are doing the same that Israel did when its troops killed Tom Hurndall, Rachel Corrie and others.

Kate, I think you are not doing Alan justice by writing your message on the BBC website. I think the best thing would be for you to return to Gaza and talk face to face with these fellows who respected you so much and who so much deserve all of our respect.

I’m sure you’ll be able to convince them.

Technorati Tags: Johnston, BBC, Gaza, Burton