FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו

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

OK, it’s not from the regular media, it’s from the Little Green Footballs blog. But it’s still one of the best headlines ever:

Lebanon Kills Hundreds, Destroys Camp, World Yawns

Today was the first day of school in Sderot. Seven Qassam rockets fell in the town in the morning. No one was hurt, but one landed close to a day care center, damaging a building. Qassams have been fired at Israelis since 2001; sometimes only one or two a day, sometimes hundreds within a few days.

Last week three Palestinian children were killed when they played tag around some Qassam launchers. IDF gunners did not see that they were children until a missile had already been fired at them.

So Hamas is trying hard to kill Israeli children, but only succeeded in killing Palestinian ones this time.

On their website, Hamas’ Ezzedeen al-Qassam brigades (the rocket and organization are named after the same “martyr”) claim that they are responding to “Zionist crimes” in attacking “settlers” in Sderot, which has been part of Israel since 1948.

Why is Hamas firing rockets at Sderot? Their reasoning is like this: If Israel continues to do nothing, Israelis will be shown to be weaklings that can’t defend their land. Ultimately the citizens of Sderot will give up and leave. This will be good for Hamas.

On the other hand, if Israel is provoked into a massive attack of Gaza (where Hamas has built serious defensive positions) there will be a large number of Israeli military casualties (good for Hamas) as well as opportunities to display Palestinian civilian casualties to the world (also good for Hamas). This also might trigger bombardment of Israeli towns in the north by Hezbollah.

But, as everyone says, “this can’t be allowed to continue”. And ultimately Israel will be fighting Hamas. It won’t go away and won’t become ‘moderate’.

So maybe get it over with, the sooner the better.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Sderot, Hamas, Qassam