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ISRANET DAILY BRIEFING ARCHIVE Volume VIII, No. 1,873 • Monday, June 30, 2008 ISRAEL-HEZBOLLAH PRISONER EXCHANGE BARGAINING FOR THE LIVING AND
THE DEAD There was a time, not so many years ago, when the policy of Israeli governments, when one of its citizens or soldiers was abducted by a terrorist organization, was to send the Israel Defense Forces to free the hostages. It was clear that negotiating with the terrorists and agreeing to their outrageous demands was simply setting the stage for further kidnappings and higher demands in the future. It was a good policy, even though it involved risking the lives of the hostages and of those sent to free them. When in past years a policy of negotiating with terrorists for the release of hostages was adopted, it only proved the original premise. The terrorists’ demands continued to escalate, and each “deal” with them only provided an incentive for further kidnappings and for ever more outrageous demands before the hostages would be released. The terrorists may have released the hostages—dead or alive—but each surrender to their demands only provided an incentive for additional kidnappings of Israelis and escalating demands, and put at risk Israelis, as yet unnamed, whom the terrorists would abduct in the future. In other words, they served as an incentive for the further abduction of Israelis. In June 2004, under then-prime minister Ariel Sharon and then-defense minister Shaul Mofaz, a deal was struck with Hezbollah for the return of three dead Israeli soldiers—Benny Avraham, Adi Avitan and Omar Suad—and the release of Elhanan Tennenbaum, in return for about 450 convicted terrorists in Israeli prisons. Whereas the three soldiers had been kidnapped while on duty in the IDF, Tennenbaum had been kidnapped while on an illegal trip in Abu Dhabi in pursuit of what he thought would be a profitable drug deal. There was no justification for the arrangement Sharon’s government made in this case. One might have hoped that it would serve as a benchmark not to be exceeded in the future, and as a lesson in how not to negotiate with terrorists. Making decisions in negotiating with terrorists for the release of Israeli hostages is an agonizing matter, and ministers are not to be envied the responsibility they carry on their shoulders. However, certain principles that need to be applied are almost self-evident: 1. Whatever deal is to be struck, it should be done immediately after the kidnapping. (Remember Ron Arad.) 2. The price to be paid for the return of the living is not to be the same as the price for the dead. 3. Remember the Israelis who are being put at risk in the future as a result of giving in to the demands of the terrorists. It is clear that in the case of the negotiations for the return of IDF soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, these principles have not been observed. In full knowledge that they have been murdered by Hezbollah, the price that Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak now seem prepared to pay is scandalous. Samir Kuntar is not just a terrorist “with blood on his hands,” but a cold-blooded murderer who killed a small child and her father. If anything, this deal is worse than the Tennenbaum deal. And now Gilad Shalit. Any fool understands that the Israeli government held one significant lever on Hamas in this case—the continued blockade of Gaza and the continuation of IDF attacks on Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip. The impression given by the government that agreeing to a cease-fire with the terrorists was part and parcel of a deal for the release of Shalit was nothing less than a cheap political manipulation. One can only imagine the price that the terrorists are asking now that they are holding not only Shalit hostage, but also the residents of Sderot, Ashkelon and the settlements in the area. The Olmert government has completely mishandled a most important security matter. Now that the Olmert government is tottering and seems to about to topple, its spokesmen are insisting that in view of the many dangers Israel is facing, this is no time to change governments. In other words, don’t change horses midstream. But Olmert has provided additional proof, as if additional proof were needed after the fiasco of the Second Lebanon War, that his government cannot be trusted to deal with the dangers on the horizon. The sooner they go the better. ISRAEL
LOSES IN PRISONER SWAP WITH HEZBOLLAH No matter how you look at it, the prisoner swap with Hezbollah is a bad deal for Israel. But as the leaders of the Jewish state prepare to hand a major victory to a mortal enemy, they once more can look their fellow citizens in the eye and say they did everything they could for the Goldwasser and Regev families. Dashed hopes Karnit Goldwasser, wife of captured Israeli soldier Ehud Goldwasser, yesterday expressed her hope that her husband would soon be released during a demonstration outside Prime Minister Olmert’s office in Jerusalem. Hours later, news of the death of Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, both of whom were being held by Hezbollah in Lebanon, was announced. For years, Israelis have felt that the sense of close-knit family that characterized the early days of their unique country had been lost. During the last week, they got it back. Seven days of nationwide deliberations ended yesterday, with a decision by Prime Minister Olmert’s Cabinet to approve a prisoner exchange with Hezbollah, through which the Iranian-backed Shiite group will give a hero’s welcome to a convicted killer, Samir Kuntar, and Israel will get to bury two soldiers who most likely died two years ago. … During the Cabinet meeting yesterday in Jerusalem, Mr. Olmert said the two soldiers had either been killed immediately or died shortly after the Hezbollah raid. To many Israelis, bartering live prisoners for dead bodies sets a dangerous precedent. Iran’s other regional ally, Gaza-based Hamas, is holding a live Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. What incentive would the leaders of Hamas now have to keep Corporal Shalit alive, knowing that they can get their operatives back for dead bodies? Then there are the disturbing images of Hezbollah’s chief, Hassan Nasrallah, bragging that his bellicose tactics are the only language the Zionists understand. In 1979 Kuntar killed an Israeli policeman and two little girls and their father in front of a horrified wife and mother, Smadar Haran. Kuntar is Druze, but the Shiite Mr. Nasrallah—not his rival, Lebanon’s anti-Iranian Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt—secured his release from an Israeli prison. Under the proposed deal, Israel will free additional Lebanese prisoners and dozens of bodies of operatives who were killed as they infiltrated the country. Information about four missing Iranian diplomats will be exchanged for details about a missing Israeli airman, Ron Arad, who disappeared after his plane crashed over Lebanon in 1986. If Hezbollah gets so much for two dead bodies, how many Palestinian Arab terrorists who have murdered Israelis must be released in exchange for the living Corporal Shalit? For these reasons, and others, the chief of Israel’s external intelligence, or Mossad, Meir Dagan, and the head of internal intelligence, or Shabak, Yuval Diskin, told the Cabinet yesterday that they did not support the proposed deal. Others, including the army chief of staff, Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi, recommended approving it. … Ms. Haran should have been angry that the release of the killer of her husband and daughter was even being considered. Instead she wrote a letter to Mr. Olmert yesterday expressing solidarity with the Goldwassers and the Regevs. Corporal Shalit’s father, Noam, said he was happy the other families’ “nightmare is over,” although his own is far from over. Current and former army commanders said their top duty has always been to ensure that no soldier is ever left behind—dead or alive. Some argued convincingly against the proposed deal, proposed by a U.N.-sanctioned German mediator, but in the end no one could look the relatives of three soldiers in the eye and say no. How could they tell the dignified Karnit Goldwasser that the price for her husband’s return, the price for ending her agony of uncertainty and doubt about his fate, is too high? For Israelis, she is family. A
VERY ISRAELI DECISION Much will be said and written in the coming days about Sunday’s cabinet decision approving the release of Samir Kuntar, four Hizbullah fighters, an undetermined number of Palestinian prisoners, dozens of Hizbullah and Palestinian bodies, and information on the disappearance of four Iranian diplomats in exchange for Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, both now presumed dead, and a Hizbullah report on the fate of Ron Arad. But one thing is clear. This decision reflects some key characteristics of Israeli society. Indeed, it is fair to say it was a typically Israeli decision—for better and for worse. Visitors from abroad are generally struck by three things about Israel: It is a country that feels vibrant and very much alive; it is a country that is superb at finding short-term solutions to problems; and it is a country where there is feeling of greater solidarity than elsewhere in the world, where people genuinely do feel a degree of responsibility for one another. … There is almost no one in the country who doesn’t know someone who was killed or wounded during the second intifada; the country supported the decision to go to war in Lebanon in July 2006 because of a feeling that after the kidnappings of Gilad Schalit and Regev and Goldwasser, anyone’s kids could be next; and the country is worked up over the Iranian threat because the specter of a nuclear Iran is not a theoretical issue—it’s something real and frightening. The country is small and feels vulnerable. The fact that the media has been dominated this last week by voices calling on the government to agree to the deal with Hizbullah came to some degree because people with opposing ideas were afraid to voice them, not only because of the negative public reaction that awaited former chief of General Staff Moshe Ya’alon for his recent comments about the prisoner swaps, but also because of self-censorship: a fear emanating from the critics’ guts that one day it could be his kid on the line, and in that case he would turn every stone, and release every prisoner, to get him or her back. That’s Israel. Everyone is near the firing line, and being near the firing line affects one’s vision. The second national characteristic that the decision reflected was the country’s aptitude for finding short-term solutions. Israel is great at short-term solutions. … The way the country brought down terrorism casualties—from some 435 Israelis killed in 2002 to 13 killed last year—is proof of the nation’s ability to find short-term solutions. Remember, there were those who said there was “no military solution to terrorism.” Israel found one. That much of the world is looking to Israel to solve the Iranian nuclear issue reflects an appreciation of the country’s ability to find solutions to problems. Likewise, Israel will find a technological solution to the Kassam rockets. It might take a couple of years, but a solution will be found. What’s the problem? The problem is that when we do find a solution, the enemy will then look for a way around it, and around and around we will go. Israel’s short-term problems are so daunting that we have little energy or patience to look for longer-term answers. Sunday’s decision was a short-term solution. It brought to close a painful chapter in the country’s history. It provided relief to the families. But what of the dangers, that the deal will encourage more kidnappings, that there will no longer be any incentive to keep kidnapped soldiers alive? Those are problems we will deal with when they prop up—and then we will find short-term solutions to them, as well. For now, the cabinet has said, let’s deal with the immediate problem, and the immediate problem is Goldwasser and Regev. The final Israeli characteristic that was reflected loud and clear in the decision was that this is a society that lives for the moment, that lives in the here and now. This characteristic is what makes the country feel so vibrant, so alive. There is tremendous energy here in all kinds of different spheres, largely because we live for today, for the now, not knowing what the future may hold. Sunday’s decision was a decision for the moment. It made us feel that we were doing our duty to the families of Regev and Goldwasser, who have suffered too long already. It made us feel good about ourselves, and how we—unlike our enemies—sanctify life, and are willing to give up a great deal on the off chance that the soldiers may indeed still be alive. It was a decision made very much with an eye on the now. As for tomorrow… tomorrow we’ll deal with tomorrow—that, after all, is the quintessential Israeli way. Please see CIJR’s Picks
of the Week page for Caroline Glick’s take on the hostage exchange. Volume VIII, No. 1,872 • Friday, June 27, 2008
HOLOCAUST REFLECTIONS “THAT SUNDAY”—YASSI
JUNE 28-30, 1941 In loving memory of Malca z”l “‘Please leave
my son if you are taking my husband…’”. “In the summer of 1941 one simple colour predominated in Iasi: black! Yellow was the colour of the star that was sewn onto their clothing to announce publicly their identity as Jews.”—I.C. Butnaru, The Silent Holocaust, Greenwood Press, New York, 1992. “There was no Holocaust in Romania. Who knows, maybe we will make a Holocaust some other time. And we will do it properly [with no survivors].”—University Professor Ion Coja, in a letter to the Romanian President, Realitatea Evreiasca, Bucharest, 2006. Due to the number of victims, the bestiality of the torture and murder, and the vastness of the robberies and destruction—all made possible with the active participation of the very authorities supposedly responsible for protecting the lives and property of its citizens—the Iasi pogrom of Sunday, June 28, 1941 marks one of the most damnable and tragic chapters in Romanian history. In June 1941, the Nazi extermination
of the Jews had not yet started. But, even before the gas chambers
and crematoriums were set to work at their ghastly purpose, the most
savage brains ever born on this planet were already at work. That
is why Iasi—a monstrous symbol of persecution, robbery, and
mass murder—stands apart from all other antisemitic activities
that preceded it during the war. It was a brutal precursor to the
horrific events that were to take place in the months and years ahead. The origins of the pogrom are embedded in the antisemitic history of Romania; Iasi is the child born from earlier Romanian antisemites like Alexandru Dimitrie Xenopol, Vasile Conta, Nae Ionescu, A.C. Cuza, Corneliu Codreanu, and from the citadel of the National Christian Defence League (Liga Apararii National Crestine). In this vile breeding ground the germs of hate against the Jewish population spread, resulting in the brutal murder of 14,000 Jews. “That Sunday,” June 28, 1941, a giant crime was committed. The victims were destroyed by a mad, hate-filled whirlwind impossible truly to describe. Yet those barbaric atrocities—which astonished even the German military onlookers—were merely a foreshadowing of what was to come. And still, the brutality of “that Sunday” bore no parallel up to that time in the early history of the Holocaust. Remember that Sunday in Iasi! Zachor! (Baruch Cohen, a Holocaust survivor, is Research Chairman of the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research.) EXCERPT
FROM LIFE AND FATE Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate, trans. Robert Chandler (London: The Harvill Press, 1985), Part Two, ch. 31, 484-7. Anti-Semitism can take many forms—from a mocking, contemptuous ill-will to murderous pogroms. Anti-Semitism can be met with in the market and in the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences, in the soul of an old man and in the games children play in the yard. Anti-Semitism has been as strong in the age of atomic reactors and computers as in the age of oil-lamps, sailing-boats and spinning-wheels. Anti-Semitism is always a means rather than an end; it is a measure of the contradictions yet to be resolved. It is a mirror for the failings of individuals, social structures and State systems. Tell me what you accuse the Jews of—I’ll tell you what you’re guilty of. Even Oleinichuk, the peasant fighter for freedom who was imprisoned in Schlüsselburg, somehow expressed his hatred for serfdom as a hatred for Poles and Yids. Even a genius like Dostoyevsky saw a Jewish usurer where he should have seen the pitiless eyes of a Russian serf-owner, industrialist or contractor. And in accusing the Jews of racism, a desire for world domination and a cosmopolitan indifference towards the German fatherland, National Socialism was merely describing its own features. Anti-Semitism is also an expression of a lack of talent, an inability to win a contest on equal terms—in science or in commerce, in craftsmanship or in painting. States look to the imaginary intrigues of World Jewry for explanations of their own failure. At the same time anti-Semitism is an expression of the lack of consciousness of the masses, of their inability to understand the true reasons for their sufferings. Ignorant people blame the Jews for their troubles when they should blame the social structure of the State itself. Anti-Semitism is also, of course, a measure of the religious prejudice smouldering in the lower levels of a society. An aversion for the physical appearance of a Jew, for his way of speaking and eating, is certainly not a genuine cause of anti-Semitism. The same man who speaks with disgust of a Jew’s curly hair or of the way he waves his arms about, will gaze admiringly at the black curly hair of children in paintings by Murillo, will be quite undisturbed by the gesticulating and the guttural speech of Armenians, and will look without aversion at the thick lips of a Negro. Anti-Semitism has a place to itself in the history of the persecution of national minorities. Anti-Semitism is a unique phenomenon—just as the history of the Jews is unique. Just as a man’s shadow can give an idea of his stature, so anti-Semitism can give an idea of the history and destiny of the Jews. One trait that distinguishes the Jews from other national minorities is that their history has been bound up with a large number of religious and political issues of world importance. Another distinguishing trait is the extraordinary degree to which they are dispersed throughout both Eastern and Western hemispheres; there are Jews in nearly every country of the world. It was during the dawn of capitalism that Jewish tradesmen and usurers made their first appearance. During the industrial revolution many Jews made names for themselves in the realms of industry and mechanics. During the atomic age many talented Jews have been nuclear physicists. And during the epoch of revolutionary struggle, many of the most important revolutionary leaders were Jews. Rather than relegating themselves to the periphery, Jews have always chosen to play a role at the centre of a society’s industrial and ideological development. This constitutes a third distinguishing trait of Jewish minorities. Part of the Jewish minority becomes assimilated into the indigenous population, but the general mass retain their peculiar religion, language and way of life. Anti-Semitism always accuses the assimilated Jews of secret nationalist and religious aspirations; at the same time, it holds the general mass of non-assimilated Jews—the manual labourers and artisans—responsible for the actions of their fellows who become revolutionary leaders, captains of industry, atomic physicists and important administrators. This is a fourth distinguishing trait. Each of these traits taken singly may be characteristic of some other minority, but it is only the Jews who are characterized by all of them. Anti-Semitism, as one might expect, reflects these traits. It too has always been bound up with the most important questions of world politics, economics, ideology and religion. This is its most sinister characteristic: the flame of its bonfires has lit the most terrible periods of history. When the Renaissance broke in upon the Catholic Middle Ages, the forces of darkness lit the bonfires of the Inquisition. These flames, however, not only expressed the power of evil, they also lit up the spectacle of its destruction. In the twentieth century, an ill-fated nationalist regime lit the bonfires of Auschwitz, the gas ovens of Lyublinsk and Treblinka. These flames not only lit up Fascism’s brief triumph, but also foretold its doom. Historical epochs, unsuccessful and reactionary governments, and individuals hoping to better their lot all turn to anti-Semitism as a last resort, in an attempt to escape an inevitable doom. In the course of two millennia, have there ever been occasions when the forces of freedom and humanitarianism made use of anti-Semitism as a tool in their struggles? Possibly, but I do not know of them. There are also different levels of anti-Semitism. Firstly, there is a relatively harmless everyday anti-Semitism. This merely bears witness to the existence of failures and envious fools. Secondly, there is social anti-Semitism. This can only arise in democratic countries. Its manifestations are in those sections of the press that represent different reactionary groups, in the activities of these groups—for example, boycotts of Jewish labour and Jewish goods—and in their ideology and religion. Thirdly, in totalitarian countries, where society as such no longer exists, there can arise State anti-Semitism. This is a sign that the State is looking for the support of fools, reactionaries and failures, that is seeking to capitalize on the ignorance of the superstitious and the anger of the hungry. The first stage of State anti-Semitism is discrimination: the State limits the areas in which Jews can live, the choice of professions open to them, their right to occupy important positions, their access to higher education, and so on. The second stage is wholesale destruction. At a time when the forces of reaction enter into a fatal struggle against the forces of freedom, then anti-Semitism becomes an ideology of Party and State—as happened with Fascism. (Vasily Grossman, the
outstanding Soviet journalist of World War II, wrote the great novel BITTERSWEET 11 a.m. It’s Yom HaZikaron. You hear the sound of the siren. You stop your car and get out. You, along with everyone else, stand still and remember the fallen soldiers. It’s sad. But you also know what lies ahead of you at night, and you feel a spark of anxiety, waiting for that happy moment. 8 p.m. You are looking out your window in your house. The stars are out. The time of happiness and enjoyment has come. Yom Ha’atzmaut is here. You rush outside and run into the heart of the city, with everyone at your side. Everyone starts dancing and singing and partying. But you also know that people are still mourning the fallen soldiers. You feel a tiny spark of sadness inside you. It is bittersweet. Bittersweet. It’s what I feel as I graduate from the Lower School to the Upper School. It’s great that we’re graduating and moving on. It’s also great that we will get more privileges. But there’s a flip side to it. It’s sad that we’re leaving. Leaving everything that we’ve ever done at the Lower School behind. It’s bittersweet. Nothing is ever just plain happy or just plain sad. In the dark, there is always a light. In the light, there is always a dark. Part of what my Jewish education means to me is learning about the Holocaust. I think this is a fine example of bittersweet. A lot of people would say, “Oh, that’s not true! There was nothing good about the Holocaust. There is nothing good to take away from it.” But that’s not true. Yes, it was a very sad event for the Jewish people, and we hope that nothing like it will ever happen again. But, we also take away from it knowledge. We learn about it, so that we can prevent anything like that from ever happening again, to Jewish people and gentiles alike. We mourn it, which is the sad part, and we also gain knowledge from it, which is the good part. It’s bittersweet. This year, in Judaic Studies, we read a book called The Children From Mapo Street, by Sarah Nashmit. It tells a tale of Jewish children living in Lithuania during the time of the Holocaust. Some join the Partisans, some go to ghettos, and a few go to Concentration Camps. It really taught us how bad the Holocaust was, and to hope that nothing like it will ever, ever happen again. This year we also went to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in D.C. We went to an exhibit called Daniel’s Story. It also told of Jewish children’s lives during the time of the Holocaust. It showed this through the story of a fictional character, Daniel, whose story was told based on lives of actual children in the Holocaust. This was bittersweet because it showed actual footage of children in Concentration Camps, which was gruesome. But the exhibit was also good because, again, it was enlightening, and it helps us build up knowledge so that we can prevent the Holocaust from happening again. In Judaic Studies this year, there were four Holocaust survivors who came to us to talk about their lives during the Holocaust. This was bittersweet because some of the stories they told us were extremely sad, and a lot of students cried. One of the survivors, Edith Lowy, even brought in the gown that she had to wear in the Concentration Camp. But alas, it was to me the most enlightening part of our Holocaust education this year. That made it feel a little better to listen to these gruesome and horrible stories. So, as we are here today, some of us happy, some of us sad, keep in mind one thing: that it is bittersweet. For every dark there is a light. For every light there is a dark. But, for now, let’s be happy. (Stuart Leon Krantz, eleven
years old, has just graduated from the sixth grade Volume VIII, No. 1,871 • Thursday, June 26, 2008 HUMAN RIGHTS IN CANADA AND BEYOND THE MARK STEYN COMPLAINANTS
DON’T UNDERSTAND Freedom of speech does not include the right to have one’s views published or broadcast. Nor does freedom of the press carry with it an obligation to give space to views opposed to those held by the press’ owners or their editors. Indeed, the only way that a right to have one’s views aired could exist is if the government restricted the freedom of the press, forcing media outlets to publish or broadcast material that was deemed otherwise unworthy. In other words, such a “right” would exist only if the state assumed the power to regulate public discourse, which would be anathema to our democratic ideals. Apparently, Khurrum Awan doesn’t have much respect for those ideals. A recent graduate of Osgoode Hall law school in Toronto, Mr. Awan has put his name to various human-rights complaints against Maclean’s magazine and writer Mark Steyn, whom the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) accuses of Islamophobia. Mr. Awan and his coplaintiffs demand that the magazine provide a pro-Islamist writer with space equal to the amount devoted to Mr. Steyn’s work. At a conference over the weekend, Mr. Awan betrayed just how thoroughly he and his fellow travellers misunderstand the concept of freedom of speech. He told the Canadian Arab Federation that Muslims must “demand [the] right to participate” in national media. “And we have to tell them, you know what, if you’re not going to allow us to do that, there will be consequences. You will be taken to the human rights commission, you will be taken to the press council, and you know what? If you manage to get rid of the human rights code provisions [on hate speech], we will then take you to the civil courts system. And you know what? Some judge out there might just think that perhaps it’s time to have a tort of group defamation, and you might be liable for a few million dollars.” That someone who graduated from law school would issue forth with this hostile jumble of threats is a sad reflection of our rights-mad age. Apparently, Mr. Awan sees freedom of speech and freedom of the press as petty concepts to be brushed aside in the service of identity politics. In his world, the repository of expressive rights is not the individual, but rather ethnic and religious collectives, whose members must bully taxpayers and media owners into disseminating their propaganda. … Perhaps what truly irks Mr. Awan is that the CIC’s position—pro-censorship, pro-Islamist, anti-free speech—has been so roundly disparaged in the mainstream media. He doesn’t just want his ideas floated in the general Canadian marketplace of ideas: He wants uncritical acceptance. Sorry, but that’s not the way things work in Canada…. You have no “human right” to get your bad ideas taken seriously. What Mr. Awan and his benefactors at the CIC want is all the power of the press with none of the risk or cost. They want the government to help them leverage someone else’s presses for their personal views. Oh yes, and while they’re at it, they would like to silence and punish those who disagree with them by having an activist judge create causes of action with penalties of “a few million dollars.” … [T]he powers wielded by human-rights tribunals should be scaled back…. Canada has become such a tolerant nation: We have come to accept that our Canadian identity is compatible with immigrant cultures. Now along comes the CIC and Mr. Awan, telling us that this is actually wrong—that we must renounce core Canadian values such as free speech and freedom of the press—at risk of a hysterical multi-million dollar legal campaign launched by Muslim and Arab plaintiffs. If someone were actively seeking to stir up the worst stereotypes Canadians hold in regard to the repressive political cultures being imported into Canada by Arab and Muslim immigrants, it’s hard to imagine anyone doing a better job than Khurrum Awan. BUT
WE WERE GETTING ALONG SO WELL The charge levelled against Maclean’s by the Canadian Islamic Congress is that, in publishing an excerpt from my book, this magazine exposed Muslims to “hatred and contempt.” Alas, at the first day of the Great Maclean’s Show Trial at the British Columbia “Human Rights” Tribunal, the well of my book excerpt’s “hatred and contempt” pretty well ran dry in the first hour. So Faisal Joseph, counsel for the plaintiff Mohamed Elmasry, was forced to bus in a huge pile of miscellaneous generic “hatred and contempt” from all kinds of other sources. And even then much of it seemed less like “hatred and contempt” than “mild offhandedness and the occasional droll titter.” A lot of it was from me, of course. Mr. Joseph started with my article, but quickly moved on to my book, my columns, my sitcom review, my lame jokes, and no doubt (by the time you read this) my casual asides while muttering to myself on top of Mount Logan during a windstorm. At the end of the first day, m’learned friend was complaining that I had been rude to the three Osgoode Hall law students who’ve been fronting for the strangely shy and retiring Dr. Elmasry these last six months. Not rude to them in the article in this space that triggered the complaint. No, apparently I was rude to them at TVOntario last month. Not rude to them on-air (although it was a somewhat raucous show), but rude to them off-camera. Geez, these days I don’t seem to be able to step out of the house without committing a hate crime. Just for the record (and before it becomes chiselled in the granite of British Columbia “human rights” jurisprudence), I wasn’t aware I was being rude to my accusers after the TVOntario show. … Even so, after six months of assurances from Canadian “human rights” commissars that if we don’t police hate-mongers like Steyn a new Holocaust will be upon us, I think witnesses were expecting a bit more red meat than the assertion that I can be a bit boorish over the green-room Perrier. As legal scholars who’d attended the “trial” under the misapprehension that it bore some dim resemblance to conventional legal proceedings observed, it was hard to see what the post-show chit-chat after a television broadcast in 2008 had to do with a 2006 Maclean’s cover story, which is, after all, supposed to be the hate crime under investigation. But it’s even harder to see what any of this has to do with British Columbia or the “British Columbia Muslim community,” on whose behalf this “human rights” suit is being brought. TVOntario is, despite its deceptive name, a TV network in Ontario. It is not broadcast in British Columbia. Khurrum Awan, the Osgoode Hall law student on the witness stand, is an alumnus of the Osgoode Hall in Toronto, not some entirely different Osgoode Hall at Fort Nelson. He lives in Mississauga, which is a suburb of Buckinghorse River. Whoops, my mistake. I mean Toronto. He works in Ontario, as an employee of the very barrister examining him in that Vancouver courtroom, fellow Ontario resident Faisal Joseph. Indeed, it is unclear whether Mr. Awan had ever set foot in British Columbia until he and Mr. Joseph and the rest of their vast Ontario delegation flew out to the coast to testify to the pain and suffering of the British Columbia Muslim community they claim to represent. When the Ontarian Mr. Awan and his fellow Ontarians agreed to appear on an Ontario TV show, there were no members of the British Columbia Muslim community present, either in the studio, the makeup room or the men’s toilet (I cannot vouch for the ladies’). As they’d say in Hollywood, no members of the British Columbia Muslim community were harmed in the making of this program. … At the opening of Tuesday’s proceedings, Faisal Joseph announced that he wanted to devote that day not to me or Maclean’s or the substance of my article but to the media and blogospheric reaction to the complaints. In other words, he was explicitly confirming [Maclean’s counsel Julian] Porter’s point—insofar as anything has exposed Khurrum Awan to “hatred and contempt,” it’s not the Maclean’s cover story but his own lawsuit. Whether or not it is appropriate (or even legal) for Canadians to be “contemptuous” of the Canadian Islamic Congress’s thuggish assault on ancient liberties, the fact is Mr. Awan’s lawsuit has earned him far more “contempt” than anything in my article. He should be suing himself. Which would be less wacky than most of the admissibility rulings by the B.C. troika. Obviously I deeply regret that I offended my accusers in the TVOntario off-air banter, even though I thought we were getting along swimmingly. It just goes to show, even when you have no idea you’re committing a hate crime, chances are you still are. On the other hand, it also suggests limited potential for conflict resolution with the plaintiffs. … Robert Frost once said that writing “free verse” was like playing poetry with the net down. The relationship of “human rights” tribunals to real courts seems to be like that: Julian Porter can whack some legalistic ace down the middle, but Faisal Joseph hurls back a box of golf balls he’s flown in from Nunavut, and the umpires award him the point. By the way, I see I’ve been nominated for a National Magazine Award, to be handed out later this month. By then, Mr. Joseph will have succeeded in getting the B.C. troika effectively to ban me from Maclean’s and from all Canadian journalism. An impressive achievement. … I’ll be the first No. 1 bestselling author and National Magazine Award-nominated columnist to be deemed unpublishable in Canada. But I won’t be the last. SOUNDS
OF SILENCE Welcome to a world where criticism of militant Islam could land you in court or worse. In Vancouver, Canada’s venerable Maclean’s magazine awaits a hate-speech verdict from a human-rights tribunal for publishing a chapter from syndicated columnist Mark Steyn’s best-selling book America Alone. The accusers charge the author and publisher with “Islamophobia.” Last week, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), warned a gathering in Kuala Lumpur that “mere condemnation or distancing from the acts of the perpetrators of Islamophobia” would not suffice. He recommended that Western countries restrict freedom of expression and demanded that the media stop publishing “hate material” like the Danish cartoons. … Islamic countries already scored a victory on this front back in March. They pushed through a resolution at the U.N. Human Rights Council urging a global ban on the public defamation of religion—read Islam. These are examples of a growing campaign to use judicial power to silence critics of militant Islam. In the U.N. Durban Review Conference, scheduled for April 20-24, 2009 in Geneva, it appears that the OIC and its cohorts have identified the perfect platform to further their agenda. Recall the first Durban meeting, the 2001 U.N. World Conference Against Racism, which took place only days before 9/11. That gathering deteriorated into a hate-fest against Jews, America and Israel. Disgusted by the vile rhetoric and Stürmer-like caricatures of Jews on display, the U.S. and Israeli delegations walked out. Hopes that the Durban II conference next year will be a more enlightened event have already been dashed by the fact that some of the worst human rights abusers are setting its agenda. At the urging of the OIC, Libya secured chairmanship of the preparatory committee. Iran and Pakistan each won a seat on the committee. And Egypt, another OIC member, has been representing the 53-nation African Group during floor debates. And so instead of Durban II rectifying the sins of the past, this latest U.N. forum will seek to undermine free societies by invoking the specter of Islamophobia. The OIC is the U.N.’s most powerful voting bloc. As the democracies at the U.N. have repeatedly learned, the OIC, with 57 members the controlling group in the 130-member bloc of developing countries, can usually push through its agenda with little difficulty. … The discrimination or defamation of Muslims, or of any other group for that matter, is of course reprehensible. But “Islamophobia,” as defined by Libya, Iran and the other Durban II organizers, covers any criticism of Islam, Muslims or their actions. If the leaders of these countries have it their way, writing op-eds criticizing Islamic radicalism, or speaking out against Muslim terrorists or, of course, publishing cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, are soon to be considered criminal examples of racism. During the most recent Durban II preparatory meetings in April and May, OIC members from Iran to Indonesia all insisted that freedom of expression is what causes Islamophobia. … Human rights advocates worried about this threat to civil liberties have been voicing their concerns with little success. Juliette De Rivero, for example, the Human Rights Watch advocacy director in Geneva, raised the alarm in late April: “Justified concerns about the complex relationship of racial and religious intolerance and hatred should not be the pretext to undermine key freedoms, including freedom of speech,” she told the conference organizers in Geneva. The danger of the Durban process is that it seeks to shape international and national laws. If the OIC succeeds, a broad definition of “Islamophobia” will be incorporated into Durban II’s final outcome document. … Only the European Union can now stop this insidious process. Canada has already announced that it will boycott the conference, and the U.S. has also indicated that it will not participate in Durban II unless satisfied that it will not be another fiasco. But only the threat of a European pullout would deal a true blow to the credibility of the proceedings and deny the partisans of “Islamophobia” the U.N. imprimatur they crave. Next month, France ascends to the EU presidency. It will be up to Paris to lead the fight for Western freedoms and, for once, put Iran, Libya, and other authoritarian states on the defensive. Let’s hope French President Nicolas Sarkozy understands what’s at stake. (Mark Dubowitz is executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.) Volume VIII, No. 1,870 • Wednesday, June 25, 2008
WEDNESDAY’S “NEWS IN REVIEW” ROUND-UP
WEEKLY QUOTES “I reiterate here in the clearest manner: As far as France is concerned, a nuclear Iran is totally unacceptable. … Those who scandalously call for the destruction of Israel will always, always, find France blocking their path.”—French President Nicholas Sarkozy, declaring a new age of Israel-France relations in an address to the Knesset. (Jerusalem Post, June 23)
“Today, in Ahmadinejad’s Iran, one finds the toxic convergence of the advocacy of the most horrific of crimes, namely genocide, embedded in the most virulent of hatreds, namely anti-Semitism. … Moreover, Ahmadinejad’s Iran is increasingly resorting to incendiary and demonizing language, including epidemiological metaphors reminiscent of Nazi incitement. He characterizes Israel as ‘filthy bacteria,’ and ‘a cancerous tumor that needs to be excised,’ refers to Jews as ‘evil incarnate’ and the ‘defilers of Islam’—the whole as prologue to, and justification for, a Mid-East genocide, while at the same time denying the Nazi one. The failure to stop past genocides, as in the unspeakable, preventable genocide of Rwanda, caused the then-UN secretary general Kofi Annan to lament in 2004 on the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide: ‘We must never forget our collective failure to protect at least 800,000 defenseless men, women and children who perished in Rwanda 10 years ago. Such crimes cannot be reversed. Such failures cannot be repaired. The dead cannot be brought back to life. So, what can we do?’ The answer, as President Sarkozy and Foreign Minister Kouchner appear to understand, is for the international community to pay heed to the precursors of genocide, and to act now as mandated under the Genocide Convention, which prohibits the ‘direct and public incitement to genocide.’”—MP and former Justice Minister and Attorney General Irwin Cotler, in the Jerusalem Post, encouraging France to lead the international community to prevent the catastrophe that they recognise as imminent. (Jer. Post, June 22)
“Look, miracles in the Middle East are a reality. Ben-Gurion once said, ‘Only those who believe in miracles are realists in the Middle East.’ So anything can happen. My predecessors were all investigated, all were accused, all were prosecuted—in an atmosphere that was sometimes intolerable. And they are all still alive and kicking—except for Ariel Sharon, whom I wish the best for a complete recovery. But here I am, I am sitting here and I have no intention of pulling out.”—Unpopular Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in an interview for the German Der Spiegel newsmagazine Thursday, confidently affirming that he intends to hold his post until the end of his term. Tuesday evening, his Kadima party reached an agreement with its coalition partner Labor to avoid dissolving the government. (Jer. Post, June 20, 25)
“It is a terrible and humiliating day for Israel. I want the country to bring [Goldwasser and Regev] home, but I doubt that it will happen.”—Karnit Goldwasser, wife of IDF reservist Ehud Goldwasser who, along with fellow soldier Eldad Regev, was kidnapped by Hezbollah two years ago, responding to news that OC Chaplaincy Rabbi Avichai Ronsky is attempting to determine whether to pronounce the soldiers “killed in action”. (Jer. Post, June 22)
“To me, this is an agreement of surrender, like Chamberlain. … Olmert is a bit younger. But he is tired. He acted to save himself. All this ‘calm’ agreement will take a heavy price from us in the future.”—Sasson Sara, a grocery store owner in the Israeli town of Sderot, sceptical of the Hamas tahdiyeh and critical of the Israeli PM, explaining to a journalist that in the year following Hamas’ Gaza coup, he believes his government has given up. (NY Times, June 22)
“Even if there is a violation by some factions, Hamas emphasizes its commitment to the calm and is working to implement the calm. But Hamas is not going to be a police securing the border of the occupation. No one will enjoy a happy moment seeing Hamas holding a rifle in the face of a resistance fighter.”—Hamas leader Khalil al-Haya, following a rocket attack from Gaza that wounded two Israelis and for which Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility, and the subsequent closure of Gaza crossings by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. (Ha’aretz, June 25)
“We were pleased to see the report that the Justice Department had indicted and extradited Monzer al-Kassar. … We were disappointed, however, that the article focused on the irony of Mr. Kassar being quietly escorted through New York on a sunny day. One of the [thousands of] innocent civilians killed by arms provided by that man was our father, Leon Klinghoffer. … He was shot in the head and thrown overboard with his wheelchair from the cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985. He was murdered by Palestine Liberation Organization terrorists because he was an American and a Jew, and because his disability made it “difficult” for the terrorists. Mr. Kassar is the first person involved in our father’s murder to be brought to America for trial. This is the story we’d prefer to see. Future coverage should focus on the murder of thousands of civilians around the world because of Mr. Kassar’s arms and on the Justice Department’s unyielding pursuit of him.”—Lisa and Ilsa Klinghoffer, in a Letter to the Editor of the New York Times, regarding “A Major Arms Dealer in Shackles, Delivered to New York”, June 14. (NY Times, June 14) “I emphasized to [Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari] how encouraged I was by the reductions in violence in Iraq but also insisted that it is important for us to begin the process of withdrawing U.S. troops, making it clear that we have no interest in permanent bases in Iraq.”—Democratic U.S. Presidential Nominee Barack Obama, following a phone call with the Iraqi foreign minister prior to trip to Iraq and Afghanistan, reiterating his stance to reporters. Republican Nominee John McCain, who had spoken with Zebari the day before, said Obama “was wrong when he said the surge would not succeed, he was wrong when he said that we were failing in Iraq as a result of it and he is wrong today. The consequences of Senator Obama’s advocacy for a time for withdrawal and set dates without a regard for conditions on the ground in my view leads to chaos and genocide.” (National Post, June 17) “I have a feeling that no one is in charge and that is why the militants are taking advantage. It is a very dangerous situation because what is happening is the Afghan government is getting desperate.”—Talat Masood, a political analyst and retired Pakistani general, criticising the government for allowing al Qaeda and the Taliban to fortify and consolidate their ranks along the Afghanistan border. Last week, Afghani President Hamid Karzai threatened to send troops across the border to pursue terrorist leaders. (NY Times, June 24) “Secularism is like the lungs of a Muslim society that opens it up to freedoms. It is the greatest insurance for women.”—Turkey’s Republican People’s Party (CHP) member Bihlun Tamayligil, in anticipation of a high court ruling on an indictment charging Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) of attempting to transform the secular democracy into an Islamic state. (NY Times, June 22) SHORT TAKES GAZA TERRORISTS KILLED IN IAF STIKE—(Gaza) Last week, prior to the initiation of a cease-fire with Hamas, Israeli air strikes killed six Army of Islam terrorists who were involved in the 2006 kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. In other Gaza news, Egyptian border guards discovered a number of tunnels used for smuggling arms and drugs near the Gaza-Egypt border. (Ha’aretz, Jerusalem Post, June 18; Ha’aretz June 25) PALESTINIANS BREAK GAZA TRUCE—(Gaza) Tuesday, Qassam rockets fired from Gaza struck the Israeli border-town of Sderot, breaching the five-day-old truce between Israel and Hamas. Terrorist group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack and said that it was in response to an Israeli operation in the West Bank that killed two of its members. (Ha’aretz, Jer. Post June 18; NY Times, June 25) SARKOZY STRENGTHENS TIES TO ISRAELIS, PALESTINIANS—(Jerusalem) French President Nicholas Sarkozy is boosting French business ties to Israel and bringing a delegation of French businessmen to meet with representatives of major Israeli corporations. Sarkozy also signed an agreement with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday establishing an industrial zone in Bethlehem in order to boost the Palestinian economy. (Jer. Post, June 23, 24) HEZBOLLAH PRISONER SWAP IMMINENT—(Jerusalem) Hezbollah says that even if Israel declares kidnapped soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser dead, it will still cost them for their bodies back. A senior Israeli defense official said a swap is imminent despite a UN statement that releasing Hezbollah prisoners (including Samir Kuntar who, in 1979, broke into an apartment and murdered a father and child) is bad for both Lebanon and Israel. (New York Post, Jer. Post, June 19; Ha’aretz, June 25) HEZBOLLAH SET TO ATTACK OUTSIDE ISRAEL—(Toronto) Intelligence agencies in the U.S. and Canada are warning that the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah is prepared to attack Jewish targets in North America. Hezbollah operatives under surveillance have been found surveying Toronto synagogues and coordinating their activities with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, while a known weapons expert was seen at a firing range near the Canada-U.S. border. (ABC News, Jer. Post, June 19; Ha’aretz, June 20) U.S.-IRAQ SECURITY PACT NEGOTIATIONS PROCEED SLOWLY—(Washington) Iraq and the U.S. are making progress in completing a new security pact that will provide a legal basis for U.S. troops to remain in Iraq after 2008, says Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. Areas of dispute between the two parties are: whether U.S. troops can be brought before Iraqi courts, American plans for long-term U.S. military bases, and American freedom to conduct operations and arrest Iraqis. The previous U.N. mandate expires on December 31, 2008. In other Iraq news, a female suicide bomber killed fifteen people and wounded forty others near the courthouse and government outpost in Baquba. Iraqi senior security official said that the attack was carried out al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. (NY Times, June 23; AFP, Reuters, June 25; Wall Street Journal, June 14-15) IRAN REACTS TO ISRAELI AIR DRILL—(Tel Aviv) Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, the Iranian Minister of Defence, threatened to use “all means available” to respond to any Israeli attack on its soil. The comments follow a Pentagon-confirmed Israeli military exercise involving over one hundred Israeli F-16 and F-15 jets that appear to be practice for a strike at Iran. Energy experts are concerned that Iran may shutdown the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway that divides Iran from the Arabian peninsula, through which forty per cent of the world’s oil is shipped, leading to a sharp rise in oil prices. (NY Post, June 22; Ha’aretz, June 23) NEW IRAN SANCTIONS—(Brussels) The European Union has agreed to new sanctions on Iran for its refusal to cease its nuclear program. Targets include Iran’s Bank Melli, the chief of the Revolutionary Guard and the head of the country’s nuclear program. Meanwhile, the U.S. is considering legislation that would broaden its sanctions on Iran. However, Iran recently withdrew $75 billion from European banks in order to prevent the money from being frozen. (NY Post, June 17; Jer. Post, June 19; New York Sun, June 25) PAKISTANI CANDIDATE BARRED FROM ELECTION—(Islamabad) A high court in Pakistan has barred former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the leader of the government’s junior partner, from running in an upcoming by-election. Sharif, the nation’s most popular politician in most polls, claims the judges who ruled against him were reinstated illegally by President Pervez Musharraf during last November’s emergency rule. (NY Times, June 24) NATO AND AFGHANIS DISPEL TALIBAN—(Kandahar) NATO and Afghan forces chased Taliban troops out of the Arghandab district in a battle that left 50 to 60 insurgents dead, according to Kandahar police chief Sayed Agha Saqib. The battle followed a jailbreak in Kandahar that allowed hundreds of Taliban prisoners to escape to northwestern Arghandab, temporarily threatening the government’s control of the area. Despite the NATO and Afghan forces’ efficient work, Brig.-Gen. Denis Thompson, the top Canadian commander in Afghanistan, said that the Taliban remains capable of further attacks. (NY Times, June 19; Globe and Mail, June 20) ARAB-ISRAELI MAP EXHIBIT REMOVED FROM CHICAGO MUSEUM—(Jerusalem) Due to immense public pressure led by Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago removed its Imaginary Coordinates exhibit. The exhibit presented the Israeli-Palestinian struggle through artefacts, videos, historical Holy Land maps, contemporary artwork, and postcards depicting Palestinian daily life. Concerns arose that the exhibit portrayed Israel negatively and challenged Israel’s borders. (Jer. Post, June 22) HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS DENIED REPARATIONS—(Jerusalem) MK Michael Nudelman stated that 11, 000 Holocaust survivors who moved to Israel from the former Soviet Union are not receiving reparations from Germany because the Claims Conference, an international body that grants compensation to survivors, failed to translate the payment request regulations into Russian. However, the Claims Conference executive committee head Reuven Merhav tried to defend the lack of payments by saying that the regulations have been available in Russian for more than a decade, and that the Conference does not have enough funds to pay an additional 11,000 survivors. (Ha’aretz, June 18) Volume VIII, No. 1,869 • Monday, June 23, 2008 US ISRAEL-POLICY MCCAIN FOR AMERICA—AND
ISRAEL With both parties’ presumptive nominees identified, the choice for the pro-Israel community is clear—John McCain is the one. I only wish my conclusion was shared by more of my co-religionists, a strong majority of whom invariably support Democratic candidates, more out of habit than conviction. This majority fails to appreciate the growing menace of Islamic extremism both to the United States and to Israel. For too many Jewish Americans, ensuring our own safety and security and that of Israel appears to be a lower priority than certain domestic issues, such as preserving abortion rights. … This baffling ordering of priorities would perhaps have more validity if McCain had made the abortion issue a prominent feature of his entire public life. Instead, his prime concern has been national security. Why do so many Jews with memories of the Holocaust still fresh consider the bloodcurdling statements by Islamist extremists as mere rhetoric, while at the same time taking at face value Obama’s calls for “change we can believe in” and slogans such as “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for”? There is also the belief shared by some in the Jewish community here that the current unpopularity of Israel and the United States is a result of their actions, the “it’s all our fault” mentality. … Then there are the Jewish Americans who, in often frantic attempts to burnish their liberal credentials, subscribe to the “both sides are to blame” explanation of international conflicts. Purveyors of this theory conclude that the way to deal with sworn enemies is to demonstrate heartfelt concern for their “legitimate grievances,” which will then lead to peaceful relations. A lack of basic understanding of the values the United States still represents to the world was pointedly in evidence when Michelle Obama infamously proclaimed that only now is she proud of America. … [Joe] Lieberman, now an independent Democrat who has enthusiastically endorsed McCain for president, recently wrote, “I have worked with Sen. McCain on just about every national security issue over the past 20 years… I have seen Sen. McCain time and time again rise above the negativism and pettiness of our politics to get things done for the country he loves so much.” Contrast this with the shallow background and thin resume of McCain’s likely opponent. Because he somehow transcends race, it is assumed Obama will transcend everything else…. He is also being compared by an adoring media to John F. Kennedy’s candidacy. As has been pointed out, however, it is not Obama, but actually McCain who, like Kennedy, was commissioned as a naval officer, awarded the Purple Heart, and decorated for helping his comrades. And McCain, like JFK, has pledged to fight for freedom around the world, and not retreat from our enemies. … During the past year there has been only one presidential candidate who before all kinds of audiences has repeatedly emphasized that “the transcendent challenge we face today is the menace of Islamic extremism.” That, of course, has been John McCain. And that is why in the coming election on November 4, he offers a clear choice to voters who share his concern for America and its friends’ survival. McCain’s “straight talk” is not, as some claim, merely fear or war “mongering,” but facing up to the reality of today’s world. McCain does not suffer from the moral equivalence syndrome of the US State Department, and the liberal media exemplified by the New York Times. One can respect Barack Obama for his ambition, his meteoric rise, and his rhetorical skills displayed recently at AIPAC’s Policy Conference. But to no one’s surprise, he almost immediately backtracked from his remarks on Jerusalem. This is eerily similar to his “explanation” of his previous assent to unconditional talks with Iran’s Ahmadinejad. … [While] his actual record on “bringing people together” is… meager, his national security resume is even thinner. This means he will have to rely more heavily on his advisers. Here it can really get scary, given both the backgrounds of several of those who have counseled him to date and the endorsements he has received from a long list of Israel bashers. It is not difficult to determine whose advice he will rely upon and to whom he will owe his political allegiance in the future, his AIPAC speech notwithstanding. If one believes we live today in a very dangerous world with unprecedented challenges, the choice before the American people and the Jewish community should be, as we say, a no-brainer. There are so many critical issues our next president will have to face on that much bullyhooed “day one”: Iran, Iraq, Russia, North Korea, Afghanistan, China, global terrorism, a faltering NATO alliance—and, of course, the Israel-Arab conflict. Given the candidates’ records, experience and core values, the choice for the pro-Israel community and the American people as a whole should really be a “slam dunk”—John McCain for President. (Morris J. Amitay is a former executive director of AIPAC and founder of the pro-Israel Washington PAC.) APPEAL
TO AIPAC Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential ambitions are imperiled by his emerging Jewish problem. Traditionally, Democrats win the overwhelming majority of the Jewish vote. Ronald Reagan received the highest support among Jews of any Republican presidential candidate in his 1980 victory against President Jimmy Carter—39 percent. For Mr. Obama to triumph in November, he will need to win at least 70 percent of the Jewish vote. Hence, he recently addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. In that speech, Mr. Obama said he is a “true friend” of Israel. … Mr. Obama’s words, however, do not match his deeds—or his disturbing past associations with anti-Israel, radical pro-Palestinian activists. The Los Angeles Times recently reported on Mr. Obama’s longstanding, close ties with Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University. During the 1970s, Mr. Khalidi worked at WAFA, the official news agency of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Led by Yasser Arafat, the PLO at the time was a terrorist group that committed atrocities against Israeli civilians. While teaching at the University of Chicago, Mr. Khalidi helped found the Arab American Action Network (AAAN)…. an avowed anti-Israel organization that denounces the creation of the Jewish state in 1948. … Also, from 1999 until 2002, Mr. Obama was on the board of the Woods Fund, a foundation that provides grants to disadvantaged groups in the Chicago community. In 2001 and 2002, the Woods Fund approved $75,000 in grants to the AAAN. In other words, Mr. Obama had links with a virulent anti-Israel group and participated on a board that helped finance it. His campaign’s chief military adviser, Gen. Merrill McPeak, believes the pro-Israel lobby runs American foreign policy. In his twisted mind, the real reason the Bush administration invaded Iraq was because of the pernicious influence of American Jews and evangelicals—who allegedly place the interests of Israel above those of the United States. … It is troubling, to say the least, that Mr. Obama sees nothing wrong with affiliating with rabid anti-Zionists, who view Israel—the Middle East’s only pro-Western democracy—as the root of evil in the region. His former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a man who was Mr. Obama’s close friend and mentor for nearly 20 years, is a radical leftist who champions black liberation theology. It seeks to fuse militant Christianity with Marxism. Its goal is to advance an anti-Western, anti-American, “anti-imperialist” agenda. In the eyes of Mr. Wright, and many on the far left, Israel has become the new British empire—a racist, imperial power that subjugates Palestinians and threatens its neighbors. … Last year, Mr. Obama opposed the nonbinding Senate resolution declaring Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization—an organization that arms, funds and trains Hezbollah in its murderous campaign against Israelis. He thus acts very much in ways his dubious associates admire. Mr. Obama’s solution to the emerging Iranian threat to Israel is more talk, sanctions and diplomatic bargaining—the very policies that have enabled Iran to outmaneuver the international community for the last decade. His major foreign policy proposal is to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq. This would play right into Tehran’s hands, and leave a strategic vacuum in Mesopotamia that would be immediately filled by Iran. Iraq’s massive oil wealth would fall under Tehran’s influence. An American defeat would embolden Iran’s mullahs to continue their quest for regional domination. This is bad for America—and the Jews. And maybe that’s precisely why so many Israel-haters support Mr. Obama. RICE
GRABS FOR THE KEY President Bush often speaks to the annual policy conference in Washington of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, but this year, he skipped it. Our sources tell us that the reason he passed up the chance to appear before a friendly audience in his final year as president was that he felt that he couldn’t top the speech he’d just given to the Knesset marking Israel’s 60th birthday. And no wonder. Mr. Bush called the founding of the Jewish state 60 years ago “the redemption of an ancient promise given to Abraham and Moses and David—a homeland for the chosen people, Eretz Yisrael.” And he told a story: “Sixty years ago, on the eve of Israel’s independence, the last British soldiers departing Jerusalem stopped at a building in the Jewish quarter of the Old City. An officer knocked on the door and met a senior rabbi. The officer presented him with a short iron bar—the key to the Zion Gate—and said it was the first time in 18 centuries that a key to the gates of Jerusalem had belonged to a Jew. His hands trembling, the rabbi offered a prayer of thanksgiving to God, ‘Who had granted us life and permitted us to reach this day.’ Then he turned to the officer, and uttered the words Jews had awaited for so long: ‘I accept this key in the name of my people.’” With such beautiful, moving, meaningful words spoken by Mr. Bush on May 15, it was a disappointment to read yesterday of Secretary of State Rice’s latest remarks in respect of Jerusalem. “Rice Criticizes Israel on West Bank Settlements,” is the way the headline was written on the Associated Press, which characterized Ms. Rice’s language as “exceptionally harsh.” The Wall Street Journal headline was “Rice Says Jewish Housing Plan Undermines Mideast Peace Talks.” What a contrast with Mr. Bush’s first principles. The settlements at issue, after all, aren’t in the West Bank, but in Jerusalem, Israel’s capital. Even if they were in the West Bank, it can’t have escaped Mr. Bush’s notice that the land promised to Abraham and Moses and David was the West Bank. What is the point of celebrating God’s promise of the land of Israel to the Jewish people, or of celebrating the possession by a rabbi of the key to Jerusalem, if every time the Jewish state wants to create new housing units in its own capital the American secretary of state turns it into an international cause of complaint? The Jerusalem Post this morning quotes one Israel cabinet minister, Eli Yishai, as telling Israel Radio, “The government is permitted to decide to build according to need, and exactly as the French government builds in Paris and the U.S. government builds in Washington ... If we place restrictions on construction around Jerusalem, we will eventually also need a special approval to build in Tel Aviv.” Mr. Yishai, a former member of the Jerusalem city council, has it exactly right. The Palestinian Arabs have no more standing to tell Israel not to build in Jerusalem than Al Qaeda has standing to tell America not to build in Washington. Lest Ms. Rice or Mr. Bush feel tempted to waver on this point, they could consult American law, the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, setting forth “the policy of the United States” that “Jerusalem should remain an undivided city” and that “Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel.” Or they could consult Senator Obama’s speech to AIPAC, in which he said, “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided,” a formulation that Senator McCain has also declared. There are lots of obstacles to peace in the Middle East. Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia are funding and harboring anti-Israel terrorists. A Hamas state dedicated to Israel’s destruction holds sway at Gaza, whence it daily launches rocket attacks on Israeli civilians. In that context, for Ms. Rice to elevate Israeli housing construction in its own capital to the level of a problem in the peace talks indicates a lack of seriousness. If Mr. Bush isn’t careful, her actions will erode the legacy of the speech he delivered at the Knesset, ripping the key to Jerusalem out of the hands of the rabbi and putting it in the hands of the State Department or what remains of Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization. Dear Readers, CIJR will be closed Tuesday, June 24, due to a Quebec holiday. The next Isranet Briefing will be sent on Wednesday, June 25. Please visit http://www.isranet.org/Israzine/israzine_Home.htm for the latest ISRAZINE, a new issue devoted to Lebanon. For more perspectives on the U.S. leaders’ foreign policy, please visit CIJR’s Picks of the Week page. Volume VIII, No. 1,868 • Friday, June 20, 2008 POST-HOLOCAUST AND ANTI-SEMITISM ANTISEMITISM EMBEDDED IN BRITISH
CULTURE “The United Kingdom has been a European leader in several areas of antisemitism in the new century. It holds a pioneering position in promoting academic boycotts of Israel. The same is true for trade-union efforts at economic boycotts. Although the anti-Zionist narrative is worldwide and widespread in the European Union, this discourse in the UK probably exceeds that of most other Western societies. Thus antisemitism has achieved a degree of resonance, particularly in elite opinion, that makes the country a leader in encouraging discriminatory attitudes. Trotskyites who infiltrated the Labour Party and the trade unions back in the 1980s are an important factor in spreading this poison.”… There is also no other Western society where jihadi radicalism has proved as violent and dangerous as in the UK. Although antisemitism is not the determining factor in this extremism, it plays a role. This Islamist radicalism has helped shape the direction of overall antisemitism in the UK. “Another pioneering role of the UK, especially in the area of anti-Israelism is the longstanding bias in BBC reporting and commentary about the Jewish world and Israel in particular. Double standards have long been a defining characteristic of its Middle East coverage. This has had debilitating consequences. The BBC plays a special role owing to its long-established prestige as a news source widely considered to be objective. It carries a weight beyond that of any other Western media institution. …” Medieval England: A
Leader in Antisemitism… “From the Norman Conquest of 1066 onward there was a steady process-particularly during the thirteenth century-of persecution, forced conversion, extortion, and expropriation of Jews. This culminated in the expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290 under Edward I. It was the first ejection of a major Jewish community in Europe. … “The return of the Jews to the British Isles began very quietly and informally in 1656 under Oliver Cromwell. This was the beginning—drop by drop—of the formation of a new community that over time would contribute a great deal to British society.” Antisemitism without
Jews “One interesting question is how could Shakespeare draw such a portrait of Shylock [in The Merchant of Venice] probably without ever encountering a real flesh-and-blood Jew? There are many theories about that. Yet he and Marlowe before him [in The Jew of Malta] managed to portray the Jews as major villains whom the populace would instantly recognize as the ‘antitype.’ I am not, of course, saying Shakespeare was an antisemite in the ideological sense (his portrait of Shylock is more complex than that). But the force of the anti-Jewish stereotype is so powerful that this is what is ultimately retained in the ‘collective unconscious’ of English culture. “This Shylock image influenced the entire West because it fits so well with the evolution of market capitalism from its early days. Shakespeare portrayed the subject in a way that is to a certain extent realistic, reflecting the rise of a commercial society in Venice and of economic competition. But Shylock has come to embody an image of the vengeful, tribal, and bloodthirsty Jew, who will never give up his pound of flesh. Rightly or wrongly, this is what most people remember. Shylock is the English archetype of the villainous Jew. Those who talk about how humanistic, universal, and empathetic his portrait is, are ignoring not only how it was perceived at the time but its historical consequences. …” The Nineteenth and Twentieth
Centuries “Yet here, too, the picture is more ambivalent than is often assumed. This was particularly so in the late nineteenth century with the immigration of Jews from Russia and Eastern Europe into Britain. At that time there was strong xenophobia. This dislike of foreigners has always been a factor in the insular British mentality. There was a conservative antisemitism resistant to the Jew as an alien who could never be fully English. The Aliens Bill of 1905, directed at halting the immigration of Russian Jews, was a case in point. “In the twentieth century, after the Russian Revolution, a linkage between Jews and communism that was intertwined with antisemitism became a pronounced theme in British public discourse. There was considerable publicity around the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This ended when Philip Graves, a London Times correspondent, exposed it as a forgery. … “In the literature around 1900, one often finds examples of a full-fledged left-wing conspiracy theory in which British imperialism is being manipulated and controlled by ‘Anglo-Hebraic’ financiers… promoted by distinguished English intellectuals, enlightened journalists and writers, as well as the prominent liberal economist John Hobson. The entire episode shows striking similarities with trends in left-wing political circles in recent years. The radical Left asserts that former prime minister Tony Blair was led by the nose into a disastrous, neo-imperialist war in Iraq by a clique of rich British and American Jews. The so-called American neoconservative conspiracy had spilled over to Britain, serving Ariel Sharon and the Likud government that was then in power in Israel. British trade unionists, then and now, proved susceptible to this kind of conspiracy theory.” Right-Wing Antisemitism… “During the war the British government was obsessed by the fear that their fight against Hitler could be construed as a war on behalf of the Jews. To avoid ‘fighting a Jewish war’ became a kind of alibi for the British authorities to do almost nothing for the Jews. Britain’s solemn commitment to create a Jewish National Home in Palestine was in fact betrayed in the hour of greatest need for European Jewry. This is a serious stain on the British record, which until then had many positive sides.” Toward Israel’s
Creation “Winston Churchill’s record on Zionism was, of course, far more positive. But it was not as unequivocal as we often assume. There is a discrepancy between his wonderful rhetoric and what Churchill—as a lifelong Zionist—actually did for the Jews when he was in power. He was very intransigent on key issues. The gates of Palestine were kept shut under his premiership. During the Second World War, Churchill was in favor of the White Paper and kept it in place, despite his strong condemnation of it in 1939 when in opposition. … [Yet] he had the historical vision to understand that Israel’s re-creation was a major event in modern history. In expressing its meaning Churchill was at his best.” The British Roots of
“Zionism Is Nazism” Toynbee |