Original articles on Israel and related issues written by Steven Plaut, a professor at an Israeli university.
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While my skepticism about the Katsav verdict was the subject of
yesterday's posting, I thought you would find Ben Dror Yemini's take
on it of interest. Yemini goes much further than I do in condemning
it.
Yemini is the Deputy Editor of Maariv, Israel's 2nd or 3rd largest
daily (depending on whether you count the freebie Israel Hayom as
one). He is also a regular columnist and blogs. He is somewhat
left-of-center, but not too far, and he is militantly Zionist. He
grew up in a religious Yemenite family. He is strongly critical of
the seditious Far Left and the "Post-Zionists" and devotes perhaps
half of his weekly weekend columns to attacking them. (Some of the
rest of the time he attacks the Israeli Right.) He admits repeatedly
in his piece that he is not a fan of Katsav and Katsav's politics.
Yemini's two-page Maariv article on the Katsav verdict appears
today in Maariv, Dec 31. It is too long to translate but I will
summarize it and paraphrase parts of it for you. Perhaps someone will
translate the whole thing into English – if so, I will post it.
Yemini's column is titled "Judicial Disgrace." He begins by
paying lip service to feminists and to their attempts to make the
public aware of sexual mistreatment of women and other grievances.
(Ok, so I TOLD you he is Left of Center!) But he then reminds his
readers of the long track record of the Israeli political and media
establishment (meaning the Left) in bashing Katsav. It began when
Katsav first beat Shimon Peres in the 2000 vote for the Presidency.
Yemini recalls how numerous leftwing journalists (including leftwing
ultras Gideon Levy and Ron Myberg) in Israel compared the Katsav vote
victory to the murder of Yitzhak Rabin. Amos Oz published at the time
a particularly offensive piece in Yediot Ahronot about the Katsav
victory, as the triumph of unenlightened religious people and
conservatives, and as the impudence of the "Second Israel" (meaning
lower-income Mizrachi and working-class Jews). Israel's leading
comedy television program, "Eretz Nehederet," essentially the Israeli
"Saturday Night Live" (but not aired on Saturday night) then
"Palin-ed" Katsav, turning him into their favorite butte of mocking.
Katsav was regularly vilified by the Israeli media. After all, he
is not "one of us," not a leftwing Ashkenazi yuppie. He is a man who
rose from humble origins and poverty in a religious family of Iranian
Jews, living most of his life in an impoverished development town in
the Negev. The three justices who just found Katsav guilty (they
included two women and the radical outspoken Arab judge George Kara)
can claim all they want that they were not influenced by the media
frenzy and assault against Katsav (writes Yemini), but their denials
are not persuasive.
Yemini then reminds his readers how the whole prosecution case got
started. It has dragged on for so many years that most have
forgotten. It began when Katsav himself filed a complaint against the
woman (still nameless and referred to in the media as "A"), who had
been his Office Manager, when she had wanted to return to her previous
job and demanded back pay. She was extorting and threatening Katsav
and he filed a formal complaint. When Katsav refused he demands, Ms.
"A" hired herself a PR man and started issuing media attacks against
Katsav.
That was when the first claims of sexual harassment were made by
her. Note – they were being made by the same woman demanding to
return to employment with Katsav! The PR people then linked "A" up
with Shelly Yachimovich. The Shelly is the head of the Taliban wing
of the Labor Party. She is a far-Leftist and ultra-feminist, dreams
of restoring to Israel the Stalinist central planning system that
operated here briefly in the 1950s. The Shelly realized she had media
dynamite in "A". That led to the most disgraceful part of the whole
story.
While "A" had never claimed she was raped, The Shelly appeared on
Channel Ten TV and announced that she (Shelly) knew that in fact "A"
had been raped by Katsav!! The leftist media then opened a blitz
against Katsav and convicted him in the press (writes Yemini).
The Shelly was then joined by Mani Mazuz, the leftist Attorney
General at the time, who pronounced Katsav guilty of rape even before
the investigation of the allegations had been conducted.
Katsav attempted to defend himself in the media. He made errors.
He bad-mouthed "A". He attempted to recruit Yemini himself to defend
him, and met with Yemini privately to state his case. Yemini says
that, unlike Yachimovich, he does not engage in journalist trial by
newspaper. But he then writes that if he had, he would have gone
public with a Katsav-is-Innocent proclamation. The evidence and
material presented to Yemini by Katsav at the time, so Yemini writes
now, completely debunked what the rest of the media were running about
Katsav. While Yemini says he was skeptical about many of the things
Katsav claimed to him at the time, later the Prosecutor conceded that
most of those points were correct. Those confirmations came out when
the state was defending its offer of a plea bargain to Katsav against
the media onslaught that denounced the plea offer.
There were senior prosecutors in the Israeli system who opposed
indicting Katsav altogether, and who were convinced that there was not
enough evidence to make a case. The plea bargain offered Katsav, and
rejected by him, would have involved no jail time and a mere
concession by Katsav that he had sexually harassed or misbehaved. The
prosecutors themselves did not believe "A". Their written response to
the complaints about the plea offer remains classified but is thought
to include detailed information on why the complaints about rape by
"A" were not credible and why "A" herself was not a credible
plaintiff. In any case, the whole prosecution case was full of
inconsistencies, contradictions about facts and dates, and other
problems.
None of this disproves the fact that Katsav often behaved badly
and improperly, writes Yemini. (So did Clinton but the whole world
treats Clinton as a cute if naughty juvenile whose private life is no
one's business. – SP) It just means that the legal case, as opposed
to the media case, against Katsav was completely un-solid, writes
Yemini.
The end of the story was that Katsav, contrary to the legal advice
he was getting, indignantly rejected the plea offer. Had he accepted
it, it would long ago have been forgotten by a world that can barely
recall who Monica Lewinsky was. Had he argued in court that at his
age most men are physically incapable of carrying out a rape, he also
might have been cleared. (I assume his machismo did not let him raise
that claim!) Instead, he is now probably to be sent to hard prison
time with actual criminals. The Hebrew university leftwing sociology
professor accused by several students of raping them was never
prosecuted and keeps his university job. The Haaretz journalist who
taught at Tel Aviv University and was accused of rape was never
prosecuted.
One can only imagine what this is doing to Katsav's wife and
children. One can imagine how serious is the risk now that he could
take his own life.
(with me and my children in it) and being hit by hundreds of Katyusha
rockets, as a direct result of Ehud Barak turning southern Lebanon
over to the Hezb'Allah in the worst act of cowardice in Israeli
history:
July 27, 2006 11:08 A.M.
Under the Katyushas by Steven Plaut
As the rockets fall on Israel, there are lessons to be learned.
Haifa, Israel — I am writing this in between ducking in and out of a
bomb shelter as Haifa is bathed by the Katyusha rockets and other
missiles that Ehud Barak has allowed to be fired at the city. Why Ehud
Barak? Because, as Israeli prime minister in 2000, he ordered the
cowardly unilateral withdrawal of Israeli troops from the security
zone in southern Lebanon, which led to the positioning of thousands of
Hezbollah rockets on Israel's northern border.
It occurs to me that now would be as good a time as any to sum up
everything that has been learned about the Middle East conflict — that
is, everything that the Israeli government and chattering classes have
refused to learn for the past two decades.
1. Nice fences do not stop missiles, rockets, and mortars.
2. Complete removal of Israeli forces and Jewish settlers from an area
does not achieve anything positive, but merely signals Israeli
weakness, inviting escalated terror and aggression from Israel's
enemies.
3. Hezbollah and Hamas cannot be defeated with air strikes. There is
no effective alternative to ground invasion and ongoing control of the
ground.
4. Unless the Israeli military controls the ground on the other side
of fences, those fences achieve nothing.
5. Goodwill gestures by Israel tend to increase terror and invite
further demands.
6. Goodwill gestures by Israel never produce moderation of Arab goals
and demands, but rather produce the opposite.
7. Terror is not caused by settlements, but rather is fueled by the
removal of settlements.
8. Terror is not caused by Israeli military occupation, but rather it
is allowed to flourish with the removal of Israeli military
occupation.
9. It is impossible for there to be two sovereign entities between the
Jordan River and the Mediterranean.
10. No matter how many concessions Israel makes, the world will always
justify Arab terrorism, because there is always one more capitulation
that Israel has failed to make (e.g., giving up the "Shebaa Farm" on
the Golan Heights).
11. No matter how nice Israel is to Israeli Arabs, no matter how many
affirmative-action programs it implements, it will always be accused
of being an "apartheid regime."
12. Much of the Israeli far Left is essentially an anti-Semitic
movement that seeks Israel's destruction and automatically endorses
the enemies of Israel in all things.
13. The Israeli Labor party and its Kadima cousin may be more
effective at fighting terror, once they decide to do so, than Likud.
The reason is that if Likud were fighting terror, the Israeli Left
would take to the streets in mass demonstrations against Israeli
imperialism and aggression, and the leftist Israeli media would
declare that 400,000 protesters turned out.
14. The Israeli Left will oppose every conceivable act of Israeli
self-defense, other than total capitulation.
15. Jewish far-leftism is a very real enemy of Israel.
16. Most international observers don't mind seeing Jewish civilians
murdered by terrorists, and will applaud and justify all such murders
as comeuppances for the Jews' being so insensitive.
17. Israeli niceness and flexibility encourage and embolden anti-Semites.
18. Israel-bashing is driven by anti-Semitism, and Israel-bashers are
increasingly open about their delight at seeing Jewish civilians
murdered.
19. Israeli pursuit of the "peace process" has triggered a worldwide
storm of anti-Semitism.
20. Terrorists cannot be appeased.
21. Arab terrorists do not morph into statesmen.
22. Looking for Palestinian moderates in politics is a fruitless endeavor.
23. Israel-bashers do not care about dead Arab civilians, other than
as a useful bludgeon with which to de-legitimize Israel.
24. Much of the Western Left would celebrate the destruction of Israel.
25. The vast majority of Israeli Arabs want to see Israel destroyed
and the Jews thrown into the sea.
26. There are hundreds of Jewish professors in Israel who serve as an
academic fifth column for terrorism and will do almost anything to
collaborate with the enemies of their country.
27. The Arabs will not accept an independent Israel in any set of
borders, no matter how small. Thus nothing can be achieved by reducing
Israel's territory, other than signalling weakness and vulnerability.
28. Much of the Western media believes that there are no problems on
earth that could not be solved by destroying Israel.
29. Most of the governments of Europe do not believe Jews should be
allowed to defend themselves from aggression.
30. The only country on earth that is expected to respond to the mass
murder of its civilians by turning the other cheek is Israel. The only
country on earth that has spent many years trying to defeat terrorism
by turning the other cheek is Israel.
31. Whenever Israel responds firmly to aggression and terrorism, it
will always be criticized for a "disproportionate" response.
32. Most of those who claim that anti-Zionism is different from
anti-Semitism are anti-Semites.
33. The only people on earth whom the Left believes should be denied
the right to self-determination and self-defense are the Jews.
34. "Palestinians" are not a people and never were. They are simply
Arabs who happened to migrate into historic Western Palestine. They
have no right to statehood.
35. The Golan Heights are not "Syrian" and never were.
36. Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein are anti-Semites, and so are
many of their supporters.
37. Israeli politicians are among the stupidest on earth.
38. Israeli leftists never learn from the failures of their policies
and "ideas." Every failure is explained away by the fact that their
policies were not applied thoroughly enough.
39. The moral and legal responsibility for every single Arab civilian
death or injury in the Middle East conflict rests squarely upon the
shoulders of the aggressor Arab fascists and terrorists who provoked
Israel.
40. There is no moral or legal reason for Israel to refrain from
attacking terrorists and murderers when they hide among civilians.
41. The "anarchists" and others who protest against Israel's security
wall want the wall removed because they want terrorists to murder
Jewish civilians.
42. Palestinians are the Sudeten Germans of the Middle East.
43. Israel has no obligation to share its water resources with the
"Palestinians" or anyone else.
44. There are no non-military solutions to the problem of terrorism.
45. Israel is faced with a host of committed enemies, and it is they
who will not accept a fair peace settlement.
46. There are no significant differences between the agenda of the PLO
and the agenda of Hamas and Hezbollah.
47. The Middle East conflict is not a marital spat. Going through the
pretense of holding hands and holding talks does not calm tensions and
achieves nothing.
48. One cannot make peace by pretending that war does not exist.
49. One cannot buy off anti-Semites and Islamofascists with trade
concessions and subsidies.
50. The only way to stop terrorism is to kill terrorists.
*******
2. The Katsav Verdict
I think I would be more inclined to believe that justice was done
in the trial of Moshe Katsav if the Israeli leftist chattering
classes, led by Shimon Peres himself, were not running about giddily
pronouncing that the trial proves that Israel has one single uniform
fair justice system for all.
It does not.
Israel has a dual justice system, under which one standard of
justice applies to far leftists and another to everyone else.
The Israeli judicial system is corrupt and highly politicized. It
is biased and functions in many ways as an appendage of the radical
Left, and this is true going all the way to the top of the system,
where so many of the country's senior jurists are still openly
practicing and preaching courtroom political bias in the name of
"judicial activism."
The court system refuses to defend the basic constitutional
rights, especially freedom of speech, for non-leftists. At the same
time it refuses to prosecute and indict Arabs and leftists for treason
even in the most egregious cases. Some Arab judges misuse their
courtrooms as arenas of a judicial intifada against Israel. The
courts castrate the military and prevent Israel from fighting
terrorism properly. The judicial system openly persecutes "rightists"
and "settlers," denying them their constitutional rights. All the
while pandering to the political petitions of the Far Left.
So while the self-righteous chatterers are patting themselves on
the back over Israel's judicial system being so fair and equitable, it
behooves us to wonder out loud if Moshe Katsav would be headed to
prison if he were a leftist. It also behooves us to wonder if he
would be headed to jail had he not trashed Shimon Peres in the
Presidential election of 2000, when Katsav blocked Peres and his Labor
Party minions from seizing the Presidency. (Peres did manage to
become President later, but he and his Labor Party bolshies always
nursed a grudge against Katsav.)
Moshe Katsav was well liked before the charges of sexual
misbehavior were raised against him, much better liked than Shimon
Peres. Large protions of the Israeli general public and several
leading jurists in Israel are still convinced that Katsav is innocent
and was railroaded, perhaps as political payback.
Me personally? I have no doubt that Katsav was always a lech and a
skirt chaser and I believe he did engage in inappropriate sexual
advances against anything with two X chromosomes. An Israeli Bill
Clinton. But did he actual perpetrate violent rape? The court says
he did. The court might be correct. And it might not be. I reserve
the right to retain a bit of skepticism.
There have been too many abuses of public trust and too many
politicized decisions by the Israeli courts to presume in all cases
that they are competent and reliable and fair and objective . The
burden of proof is today upon the courts to prove they did not judge
Katsav in a politically biased manner. It is the fault of politicized
judges that things have gotten to this - where the courts themselves
must convince the public that they did not produce politicized
miscarriages of justice.
I have no evidence that the Katsav conviction was such a
miscarriage. But I am not willing to presume that Israeli judges are
ALWAYS neutral and fair until proven biased. There are too many cases
that have already proved otherwise.
Deep South, Jeff Foxworthy. He is best known for his comedy shticks
based on the refrain, "Then you just might be a redneck." For
example, if you have 24 pickup trucks and none of them work, then you
just might be a redneck. That sort of thing.
Well, it occurs to me that Jeff Foxworthy could really clean up if he
altered his shtick slight to comment on those "who just might be
Israeli leftist fascists and racists."
Here are some samples:
1. If you think it is racist when some rabbis call for people not to
rent property to Arabs, but it is a progressive gesture for peace and
tolerance to demand that property not be rented or sold to Jews in
Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, then you just might be an Israeli leftwing
fascist and racist.
2. If you think Israel is an apartheid regime, then you just might
be an Israeli leftwing fascist and racist.
3. If you think Israel should be the only country on earth to allow
unlimited entrance for African infiltrators, while to refuse to do so
would be racist, then you just might be an Israeli leftwing fascist
and racist.
4. If you think that rabbis calling for people not to rent property
to Arabs is racist, but Sheikh Salah's rant at the University of Haifa
calling for Arab students to become suicide bombers was not, then you
just might be an Israeli leftwing fascist and racist.
5. If you think it is the main purpose of universities to
indoctrinate students in leftwing ideology, then you just might be an
Israeli leftwing fascist and racist.
6. If you think that international pressure on Israel to make peace
by accepting terms rejected by the majority of Israelis is necessary
and valuable, then you just might be an Israeli leftwing fascist and
racist.
7. If you think Israeli Arabs should be exempt from obeying Israeli
laws, then you just might be an Israeli leftwing fascist and racist.
8. If you think that students displaying posters and tee shirts with
images of Abdul Nasser, Che Guevara, and bin Laden is legitimate
protest but Im Tirtzu students wearing tee shirts with images of Herzl
is fascism, then you just might be an Israeli leftwing fascist and
racist.
9. If you think that faculty members should have the right to cheer
on terrorism against Jews, to call for Israel's obliteration, to
support lawbreaking, to call for international boycotts against
Israel, and to call for Israelis to refuse to serve in the military,
while at the same time you consider anyone who CRITICIZES those same
faculty members for doing those things to be "McCarthyists," then you
just might be an Israeli leftwing fascist and racist.
10. If you think that Haaretz is the epitome of even-handed
responsible neutral and balanced journalism, then you just might be an
Israeli leftwing fascist and racist.
11. If you deny that Noam Chomsky's endorsements of Holocaust Denials
are anti-Semitism, then you just might be an Israeli leftwing fascist
and racist.
12. If you think it is fascist to criticize the New Israel Fund and
its officers, then you just might be an Israeli leftwing fascist and
racist.
13. If you think Israel owes Turkey an "apology" for its takeover of
the Gaza flotilla ships, then you just might be an Israeli leftwing
fascist and racist.
14. If you think everyone who disagrees with Uri Avnery and the
radical Left is a "fascist," then you just might be an Israeli
leftwing fascist and racist.
15. If you think shooting terrorists constitutes "war crimes," then
you just might be an Israeli leftwing fascist and racist.
16. If you favor academic departments in which only enlightened
leftist opinion may be expressed and where there is no room for
non-leftist dissenting opinion to be heard, then you just might be an
Israeli leftwing fascist and racist.
17. If you believe that the only legitimate way for Israel to defend
its citizens against terrorism is to capitulate to the demands of the
terrorists, then you just might be an Israeli leftwing fascist and
racist.
18. If you find it perfectly reasonable when the heads of the
Palestinian Authority insist that no Jews be allowed to live in any
future Palestinian state but consider it racism when Lieberman
proposes transferring control of Umm al-Fahm to the PA, then you just
might be an Israeli leftwing fascist and racist.
19. If you insist that there are no lessons to be learned from the
8000 rockets fired at Israel after Israel abandoned the Gaza Strip,
then you just might be an Israeli leftwing fascist and racist.
20. If you regard all Israeli Arabs as "Israeli Palestinians" but
consider it racist whenever anyone suggests that Israeli Palestinians
should move to the territory of the Palestinian Authority, then you
just might be an Israeli leftwing fascist and racist.
21. If you think African infiltrators should be allowed into Israel
with no limit just as long as none of them live in your own building,
then you just might be an Israeli leftwing fascist and racist.
22. If you see nothing objectionable when people in Ramat Aviv demand
that Chabadniks and other Orthodox be kept out, but are horrified when
residents of Shchunat Hatikva object to the presence of illegal
Africans, then you just might be an Israeli leftwing fascist and
racist.
23. If you consider it racist when someone suggests that Jews should
have as much right to live in predominantly Arab areas, including in
East Jerusalem, as Arabs have to live in Jaffa and Haifa, then you
just might be an Israeli leftwing fascist and racist.
24. If you see nothing racist in the firing of missiles into Sderot
or in the setting of scores of forest fires intentionally, then you
just might be an Israeli leftwing fascist and racist.
25. If you consider it racist to discuss the intentional arson that
set dozens of forest fires, then you just might be an Israeli leftwing
fascist and racist.
26. If you claim that Israel conducts ethnic cleansing or genocide,
then it is certain that are an Israeli leftwing fascist and racist
27. If you think the Upper Nazareth city hall should have a Christmas
tree, but that Jews should be prevented from praying on the Temple
Mount, then you just might be an Israeli leftwing fascist and racist.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/141338
Leftists Caught Red-Handed: 'Burning Sheep' Libel Was Faked
Tevet 19, 5771, 26 December 10 11:00
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
(Israelnationalnews.com) A Jordan Valley Arab farmer has exposed the
tactic of leftists accepting Arab claims and falsely accusing Jews of
attacking Arabs. He admitted that the "burning sheep" libel against
Jews was meant to disguise his own blunder of losing control of a
brush fire.
Last week, left-wing groups in Israel and counterparts in the United
States spread a story that that an Arab shepherd "saw settlers light a
fire in the field where his herd was grazing, burning to death 12
pregnant ewes, and then drive away."
The story of the sheep burning was so extreme that the police
immediately doubted the claim. The supposed burning of the sheep
occurred on the Sabbath, when observant Jews, the usual scapegoats,
are forbidden to drive.
The Arab farmer, Samir Bani Fadel, claimed that four armed Jews
approached him, chased him away, set fire to his field – which also is
forbidden on Sabbath – and drove away as the fire spread and burned to
death 12 pregnant ewes while injuring others.
Regardless of the doubts, the left-wing B'Tselem and Yesh Din human
rights group rushed to allege that the supposed attack was another one
of hundreds of supposed acts of vandalism by Jews against Arabs.
New York-based writer Philip Weiss promptly reprinted the libel on his
Mondoweiss blog, and the image of sheep being cruelly burned aroused
sympathy for Arabs and anger against Jews. "It was an awful sight,"
the farmer said. "I've lost at least $12,000."
The Palestinian Authority called on the international community to
pressure Israel to stop "settler violence."
The tale began to unravel when Arabs pointed their fingers at
residents of Itamar, an easy target as it is a religious community,
but located almost an hour's drive from the scene of the fire. The
story then was changed, with the blame being placed on the closer
community of Maaleh Ephraim, most of whose residents are professionals
and who almost never have been accused of any activities against
Arabs.
Fadel finally admitted to police the whole story was a lie and that he
was responsible for the fire, which he set to burn thorns before it
spread beyond control. Blaming Jews not only would have saved him from
the embarrassment of having burned his own sheep, it also would allow
him to claim damages from the government while being hailed as a hero
among Palestinian Authority Arabs and left-wing anti-Zionists.
Hundreds of accusations against Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria
have been leveled in recent years, usually in claims that Jews attack
or destroy olive trees, although evidence has been produced that in
most cases the Arabs have simply pruned their trees, counted on lack
of agricultural knowledge on the part of the media and leftwing
groups, and then accused Jews of damaging them. Olive trees look
hacked when they are pruned and months later, the supposedly damaged
orchards have been seen to be full of fruit.
Another tactic has been to instigate violence, especially on the
Shabbat when Jews are forbidden to take pictures, and then accuse Jews
of attacking them.
Yossi Dagan, adviser to the Samaria Regional Council, commented,
"There is a system among left-wing groups who campaign for financial
contributions from foreign countries, many of whom are hostile to
Israel. They use European Union money, which has reached billions of
dollars the past few years. Many of the workers for left-wing groups
enjoy high salaries and use reports from so-called human rights
organizations and then travel throughout Judea and Samaria and blow up
or change facts to spread libel against Jews."
Dagan explained that Jews are blamed for burning cars in Arab villages
when in fact they are damaged as a result of fights among Arabs.
David Ha'Ivri, who heads the Shomron (Samaria) Liaison Office that
handles public relations for the Jewish communities in Samaria, said,
"We have a very difficult task up against a bunch of well-funded NGOs
like B'Tselem and Rabbis for Human Rights, whose agenda is to hurt the
image of the State of Israel and the Jewish residents of Yehuda and
Shomron (Judea and Samaria).
"Their slanderous claims are always given the benefit of the doubt by
international media agencies who jump at an opportunity to project a
Satanic image of the 'evil Jewish settlers.' The events reported in
this story are a perfect example of blood libel promoted by NGOs who
claim to be humanitarian and peace activists."
2. I have posted this before but the time is ripe to re-post.
We must all support a two-state solution!!
It is the solution where the Jews keep their one state, and the Arabs
give up 21 out of the 22 states they now have, to be left with one
single state (in Saudi Arabia perhaps).
3. Auld Lang Zion 2011
Should auld accomplice be forgot,
And never brought to trial?
Should auld Osloids, friend, be forgot,
In days of auld lang Zion?
For betraying auld lang Zion, my dear,
For debasing auld lang Zion.
Should their accomplice be forgot,
In days of auld lang Zion?
We yids hae run aboot the world,
Under fire all the time.
We've wandered many a weary foot,
To reach auld lang Zion.
Save auld lang Zion, my dear,
Save auld lang Zion,
Indict those Oslo blaggards, dear,
For the sake of auld lang Zion!
4. The "Jewish Section" of the Israeli General Secuirty Service
(Shin Bet) usually follows around Kahanists trying to apprehend them
when they write insensitive graffiti on the walls. In the past it
never paid any attention at all to Jewish leftist traitors and spies.
Well, here is today's headline from Haaretz, with the usual Haaretz
bolshivik distortions and spin:
Shin Bet puts Israeli 'anarchists' in crosshairs
Security forces' Jewish Department warns leftist activists that they
might be found to be violating the law.
By Amira Hass
Excerpt: Haaretz asked the Shin Bet whether it was warning activists
about violating laws that the Knesset may pass in the future, thus
making their actions illegal. The newspaper also asked who was
considered "suspected," and whether members of the service could
participate in demonstrations against the government.
The Shin Bet responded, "The security service acts in keeping with the
authority granted it by law to fulfill its objective of protecting
state security, institutions and public order in a democratic regime
from threats of terror, damage, subversion, spying and revealing state
secrets, as stipulated in paragraph 7 (a ) of the Shin Bet security
service law from 2002. As for the extent to which Shin Bet employees
may take part in demonstrations, they are subject to the restrictions
imposed on all civil servants."
of Preparing Genocide
http://thejewishpress.blogspot.com/2010/12/hebrew-universitys-anti-jewish.html
Israel's fascist Left, led by its anti-democratic academic Left, is
declaring war on the Jews.
In Haaretz today, Hebrew University Professor Daniel Blatman writes
the most anti-Semitic article that has yet to appear in the Israeli
mainstream media. Blatman claims to be a Holocaust scholar, and is
employed by the Hebrew University at the Harman Institute of
Contemporary Jewry.
In his ranting anti-Semitic article, Blatman bleats: "No society is
immune to deterioration into violent racism. In the Israel of today,
we can observe quite a few conditions whose presence in other
societies and among other peoples led to racial separation, ethnic
cleansing and even genocide. There are minority groups (Arabs and
foreigners ) who are ostracized by the majority, a growing racist
ideology, attempts to limit the political activities and civil rights
of the minority, a tense security situation and strong political
elements with vested interests in territorial expansion."
Blatman's rant is part of the current wave of Jewish self-hatred in
Israel under which leftist Jews insist that Israel's refusal to allow
unlimited numbers of Africans seeking better-paying jobs to enter the
country is the moral equivalent of the Nazi Holocaust of Jews.
Hundreds of Africans "protested" over the weekend in protests
featuring signs in Hebrew written for them by leftist Israelis, making
exactly such comparisons. Blatman joins them, insisting that Israel
in 2011 is exactly the same as Germany in 1932.
Blatman's entire rant can be read here:
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/1932-is-already-here-1.332974
. If he were really alive in 1932, he would be leading crowds of
German protesters denouncing Jewish racists inside Germany undermining
fraternal relations there. Blatman is a groupie of the old socialist
Bund, which is his academic specialty, an anti-Zionist group of
would-be Jewish socialists in Europe, most of whom were exterminated
by the Soviets. Blatman's email is Daniel.Blatman@huji.ac.il
If you want to tell the heads of the Hebrew University what you think
of Blatman's anti-Jewish ranting, write to
Hebrew University:
President of the Hebrew University
Prof. Menachem Ben-Sasson
Email hupres@cc.huji.ac.il
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem 91905
Tel. 02-6584143, 02-5881905
Fax. 02-5811023
Rector of the Hebrew University
Prof. Sarah Stroumsa
Email stroums@vms.huji.ac.il
Sarah.Stroumsa@huji.ac.il
stroums@huji.ac.il
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem 91905
Telephone: 02-6719698, 02-5883676
URL: http://pluto.huji.ac.il/~stroums/
Hebrew University "Friends of" Offices:
http://www.huji.ac.il/huji/eng/friends_e.htm
2. Haaretz reports that a group of "intellectuals" is calling on
Netanyahu to fire all rabbis who signed the earlier call for Jews not
to rent or sell property to Arabs in predominantly Jewish areas.
Among the signers were Prof. Joseph Algassi (Tel Aviv University,
philosophy), a leading proponent of the "One-State Solution" in which
Israel will be obliterated and replaced by a Rwanda-style bi-national
state with an Arab majority (see
http://www.tau.ac.il/~agass/joseph-papers/palestine.pdf) . Also
signing was Prof. Haim Adler from the Hebrew University (education),
and Prof. Aliza Shenhar, the leftist head of the Galilee College (who
was a Rector at Haifa University). None of these same people called
for firing leftwing anti-Zionist professors in Israel who call on
people not to rent and sell property to Jews in East Jerusalem.
3. The Gagosian Gallery in New York (with branches elsewhere) is a
leading gallery for sale of art. In recent days the gallery featured
the work by German painter Anselm Kiefer. See this
http://www.gagosian.com/artists/anselm-kiefer/ Born in 1945, much of
his work is devoted towards denunciation of Germany's fascist past.
He is also passionately pro-Israel. His exhibit at the Gagosian was
entitled Next Year in Jerusalem. See this:
http://www.gagosian.com/posters/2010_anselm-kiefer_next-year-in-jerusalem-poster/
Now it seems that a German artist who is friendly to Jews was too much
for the local leftist anarchist anarcho-fascists in the greater New
York Metropolitan area. A group of them wearing fascist black shirts
decided to "protest" the holding of a pro-Jewish art exhibit at the
gallery, and showed up with signs and tee shirts denouncing Israel and
endorsing the "flotilla" of jihad terrorists that attacked Israel.
When ejected, the "protesters" got violent and one was injured. How
dare any Germans express pro-Jewish sentiments!!
A detailed report on this appears in the New Yorker at
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2010/12/gagosian-jerusalem-protest.html
4. Ordinarily it is hard to get Israel's Literary Left upset about
anything besides the fact that Israel has yet to agree to be
annihilated by the "Palestinians."
But this week about 200 or so have signed a petition being places all
over the Israeli mainstream media, and – amazingly – it has nothing to
do with demolishing Israel, granting the "Palestinians" a "right of
return," nor setting up a nice Palestinian state.
The petition byf the Literary Leftists is a demand that the government
fix prices of books to allow them to earn higher royalties. It is led
by Amos Oz, David Grossman, and A.B. Yehoshua.
You see, markets for books in Israel, like markets for everything
everywhere, set prices based on supply and demand. The Literary
Leftists are upset that the prices set by the market are "too low" for
their tastes. Basically, they have sunk to the moral depravity of the
dairy lobby or the poultry lobby and are insisting that prices be
fixed Bolshevik-style when their own interests are at stake.
The Literary Leftists do not like markets. Their next petition will
be a demand that agriculture be collectivized in Israel by party
Kommissars so that Israeli writers can buy their food at nice
controlled price levels while they are working on their new books
about how Israel is becoming a racist nazi state.
slogan to serve as the Oslo mantra. It was based on the old Ben
Gurion mantra from the 1940s, about how the Jewish Yishuv in Zion
would fight Hitler as if there were no White Paper (the British
document that prevented Jewish refugees migrating to the Land of
Israel) and would fight the White Paper as if there were no Hitler.
Rabin altered this to be: We will fight for peace as if there is no
terrorism, and we will fight terrorism as if there is no peace
process.
The same slogan was used by Ehud Barak during his various phases, and
is now being bandied about by Amram Mitzna as his own slogan, in his
current attempt to pull a Nixon and re-establish his hegemony over the
rump Labor Party.
Except for one thing. As early as Rabin's era as Prime Minister, I
argued that the REAL mantra of the Labor Party under Oslo is this:
"We will fight for peace as if there is no terrorism, and we will
fight terrorism as if there is no terrorism."
academic radicalism for decades, the anti-democratic officials at the
head of Ben Gurion University just decided to prevent a small group of
leftwing extremists from distributing a libelous pamphlet on campus.
The pamphlet was a malicious personal attack against Avigdor
Lieberman. Campus heads were convinced the pamphlet was slanderous
and would result in the university being sued. See this story:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/left-wing-students-fight-university-ban-of-libelous-flyer-featuring-lieberman-1.332319
The pamphlet also warned against the "march towards fascism" in
Israel. This is ironic, since many of the leading anti-Israel
Neo-Fascists who battle against freedom of speech in Israel are
faculty members at Ben Gurion University, and one of the worst is now
Dean of Social Sciences and Humanities there.
The leftwing fascist students who prepared the pamphlet complained
that the ban violates "academic freedom" at BGU. But academic freedom
at BGU does not exist at all. Zionists and non-leftists may not teach
in the Politics department. The campus chiefs have led the jihad to
silence the Zionist students from Im Tirtzu. You also recall no doubt
that BGU's President, the cabbagehead Rivka Carmi, fired a professor
for expressing a politically unfashionable opinion about homosexual
couples raising children. She then defended the firing in the name of
the necessity of silencing opinions that can offend people. Except
she has long defended the rights of faculty members to cheer Hamas
rocket attacks against Jews and who also call for Israel to be
annihilated, opinions that also offend people.
And since when are the heads of BGU so upset about harassment libel
suits? After all, they have long SUPPORTED the neo-fascist attempt by
anti-Israel pseudo-academic Neve Gordon to silence ME by means of a
harassment SLAPP suit. Gordon wanted the court to punish me for
criticizing Gordon's published political opinions. The Israeli
Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling in that matter any day
now.
Gordon's harassment SLAPP suit against me, by the way, was originally
filed in Nazareth Court because Gordon hoped (and succeeded) to get
the case assigned to an anti-Israel Arab radical judge. The Nazareth
Court has been in the press in recent days. Because so many of its
judges are Arabs, every Palestinian with any "grievance" against
Israel files suits THERE, and in many cases the sympathetic judges
award monetary awards to the Palestinians, including those injured
when involved in violence against Israel. Nazareth Court, according
to these media reports, has morphed into Israel's center for the
judicial intifada.
2. Don't hold your breath waiting for the Left to Apologize:
ALAN DERSHOWITZ: FINALLY, A HAMAS LEADER ADMITS THAT ISRAEL KILLED
MOSTLY COMBATANTS IN GAZA
By • Alan Dershowitz
Published in: Huffington Post December 21, 2010
Since the end of the Gaza War in January 2009, Israel has stood
accused of targeting civilians, rather than terrorist combatants. The
Israeli Defense Force has claimed that during Operation Cast Lead it
targeted only combatants in its efforts to protect its civilians from
rocket attacks. It has also claimed that most of the dead were
combatants and issued lists of names of many of the combatants killed
and identified them as members of the specific Hamas military units.
Despite unprecedented efforts to avoid civilian casualties --
including hundreds of thousands of leaflets, telephone calls and
non-lethal, noise-making warning bombs -- some civilians were killed,
because Hamas deliberately hid behind civilians, using them as
shields, when they fired rockets at Israeli civilians.
Following the end of the Gaza War, which has essentially stopped Hamas
rocket attacks against Israeli civilians, there was a great debate
about the number of Gaza civilians actually killed, and the ratio of
civilian to combatant deaths during this difficult military operation.
The Israel Defense Force put the total number of known combatants
killed at 709 and the number of known civilian deaths at 295, with 162
(mostly men of fighting age) "unknown." Such a ratio, if true, would
be far better than that achieved by any other nation in a comparable
conflict. Not surprisingly, Israel's enemies initially disputed this
ratio and claimed that the number of combatants killed was far lower
and the number of civilians far higher. The United Nations, the
Goldstone Report, various "human rights" organizations and many in the
media automatically rejected Israel's documented figures, preferring
the distorted numbers offered by Hamas' and other Palestinian sources.
But a statement recently made by a Hamas leader confirms that Israel
was correct in claiming that approximately 700 combatants were killed.
First, a word about the context of the Hamas statement. In the
aftermath of the war, Hamas has come under considerable criticism from
rival terrorist groups for not doing enough to defend Gaza and for
allowing so many civilian casualties. So, in a recent interview with a
London paper, Al-Hayat, Fathi Hamad, Hamas' Interior Minister,
responded to these criticisms as follows:
"It has been said that the people were harmed by the war, but is Hamas
not part of the people? It is a fact that on the first day of the war
Israel struck police headquarters and killed 250 members of Hamas and
the various factions, in addition to the 200-300 operatives from the
[Izz al-Din] al-Qassam Brigades. In addition, 150 security personnel
were killed, and the rest were from people. (The original text of the
interview in Arabic, as reprinted in the Hamas newspaper Felesteen,
can be found on the website of the Meir Amit Intelligence and
Terrorism Information Center. It was also reported by Agence France
Presse)
This statement not only supports the Israeli numbers, but it also
acknowledges what Israel has long said about the 250 policemen who
were killed on the first day of combat: they were "members of Hamas
and the various factions" and were indeed "combatants" by any
realistic definition of that term.
Fathi Hamad's figures are in striking contrast to those originally
issued by Palestinian groups which claimed that only 48 combatants
were killed and that the total amounted to a mere 17 percent of all
fatalities.
Because it uncritically accepted the original Hamas claims of very few
combatant deaths, the Goldstone Report was able to reach its flawed
conclusion that the purpose of the operation must have been to kill
civilians, not combatants. This is what the Goldstone Report said:
The Mission notes that the statistics from non-governmental sources
are generally consistent. Statistics alleging that fewer than one out
of five persons killed in an armed conflict was a combatant...raise
very serious concerns about the way Israel conducted the military
operations in Gaza. The counterclaims published by the Government of
Israel fall short of international law standards.
Now that the truth has been admitted by the Hamas leadership -- that
as many as 700 combatants were, in fact, killed -- the Goldstone
Commission is obliged to reconsider its false conclusion and correct
its deeply flawed report.
Richard Goldstone himself has repeatedly said that he hoped that new
evidence will prove his conclusions wrong. Well, this new evidence --
a classic admission against interest -- does just that!
The original false figures have also been submitted by the Palestinian
Authority to the International Criminal Court. It too has an
obligation to correct the record. It would be an outrageous
miscarriage of justice for the International Criminal Court to open an
investigation of a nation that, in actuality, had the best ratio of
combatant to civilian deaths in any comparable war.
The admission by Fathi Hamad that Israel's figures were correct and
those originally offered by Palestinian groups were false exposes the
rush to judgment against Israel that has stained the so-called "human
rights" community so often in the past. It is essential that this new
evidence be widely circulated, which it has not been to date, and that
those who condemned Israel on the basis of false allegations correct
the record. Don't hold your breath! In today's distorted world of
"human rights," truth takes a back seat to ideology, and false claims
-- especially those that "support" radical ideologies -- persist even
after they have been exposed.
Professor Alan Dershowitz's latest book is a novel, The Trials of Zion.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-dershowitz/finally-a-hamas-leader-ad_b_798429.html?ref=tw
3. More leftist censorship?
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/12/23/how-the-l-word-became-a-4-letter-word/
See also http://frontpagemag.com/2010/12/22/the-left-twists-net-neutrality-into-a-civil-rights-issue/
4. When assimilationist liberals claim to speak for the Jewish
community: http://frontpagemag.com/2010/12/23/will-jewish-community-leaders-stand-up/
5. How to melt a Leftist:
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/12/23/melting-leftist-arguments-on-contact/
6. From Middle East Quarterly:
Clash of Identities
Explorations in Israeli and Palestinian Societies
by Baruch Kimmerling.
New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. 429 pp. $55 ($27.50, paper)
Reviewed by Steven Plaut
University of Haifa
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2010
http://www.meforum.org/2799/clash-of-identities
If you are looking for a numbingly unreadable book of anti-Israel
diatribes written by a deceased sociologist with Marxist tendencies,
you can do no better (or worse?) than Clash of Identities. Kimmerling,
who died in 2007, devoted his long career as a sociologist to doing
little sociology while preening as a New Historian. Clash of
Identities is the reprint of twelve previously published articles
venting against Israel and Zionism.
Just about everything that was wrong with Kimmerling's work as an
academic is on display in this new book, which is long on diatribe but
short on evidence. Data and numbers are almost completely missing.
Other than a few tables from a questionable public opinion survey,
nothing is measured quantitatively in this supposed investigation of
identity.
Kimmerling seems to have had little interest in measurement and
analysis and seemed more interested in preaching and advocating. He
saw himself as a historian of the Palestinian people, seeing shades of
Palestinian identity decades, even centuries, before the U.N.
partition vote of 1947. Ironically, when he actually stumbled across
evidence of importance, he tended to ignore what it actually showed.
Thus, in describing the birth of Palestinian national identity, he
mentions petitions sent to British authorities in the 1920s by
thousands of Palestinian intellectuals and professionals, demanding to
be made Syrian citizens.
This book may be eye-opening for people who have never read a book
before about the Middle East. They will learn that both Jewish and
Arab identities have something to do with religion, that both
nationalist movements have flirted with socialism, and that many
Israeli resources go into its military. However, Kimmerling chooses to
ignore or hide the fact that the bulk of Palestinians in 1948 were
recent migrants or temporary workers who came to the area from other
Arab countries attracted by the increase in economic opportunities
brought about by Jewish enterprise and British rule of law. The reader
will also fail to learn that, until 1967, there was little Palestinian
nationalism beyond Arab nationalism or beyond the Arab desire to see
the Jews driven into the sea.
The most interesting part of the book is its long preface. There we
learn that when Kimmerling first approached the dean of Israeli
sociology, Shmuel Eisenstadt, to be his dissertation advisor,
Eisenstadt turned him down cold because Kimmerling was planning on
writing a pro-Arab diatribe as his thesis. Other senior professors at
Hebrew University also showed him the door. Eventually he managed to
twist the arm of a junior faculty member, Moshe Lissak, to serve as
his supervisor. Lissak, who became one of Hebrew University's most
distinguished professors also became one of Kimmerling's harshest
critics.
7. More jihad from the Hebrew University:
http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/HebrewU%20-%20Bashir%20Bashir%20-%20Middle%20East%20with%20no%20Israel.htm
We are caring leftist progressives. We believe in openness. We
salute Wikileaks and its chief, Julian Assange. He really taught the
world a lesson. We adore his courage! We oppose the right to secrecy
of public bodies. We believe in the public's right to know. It
trumps everything, including national security and the right to
privacy. We send Assange money by Paypal. We demand that Assange not
be prosecuted for anything, even for rape. He is our role model. He
is our hero.
And that is why we are so outraged! How dare anyone steal
documents from the Far-Leftist anti-Israel "human rights" group "Yesh
Din."
We adore Yesh Din. It battles for the human rights of
Palestinians to set up their own state in the West Bank in which no
Jews can be present to offend their delicate sensitivities. It
collects information about settlement construction and turns it over
to anti-Israel groups around the world. It has never gotten around to
acknowledging that Jews are entitled to any human rights.
But now it turns out that some local Israeli Wikileaker or sorts
stole hundreds of documents from the Yesh Din offices and computers,
and from the computer of the Yesh Din legal advisor, anti-Israel
extremist Michael Sfard. See this news story in the Palestinian
newspaper published in Hebrew:
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/human-rights-ngo-monitoring-palestinians-legal-rights-gets-robbed-of-internal-use-documents-1.331912
Note the wonderful non sequitur in the title of the Haaretz news
item: "No signs of forced entry were found in their offices, raising
suspicion that rightist groups managed to plant a mole in the
organization." Moles? Surely Haaretz means a leaker of secrets
which the public is entitled to know and see! After all, the world
is safer without any secrets!
Here is the full story from Haaretz:
Human rights NGO (sic) monitoring Palestinians' legal rights (sic)
gets robbed of internal use documents
No signs of forced entry were found in their offices, raising
suspicion that rightist groups managed to plant a mole in the
organization.
By Yaniv Kubovich and Akiva Eldar
Hundreds of documents have been stolen from the database of Yesh Din,
the NGO monitoring the legal situation of Palestinians in the West
Bank. The group's legal adviser, attorney Michael Sfard, said his
office also had also internal use documents stolen.
This may be the first case of information theft from a human rights
organization (sic) in Israel.
No signs of forced entry were found in either Tel Aviv office, raising
the suspicion that rightist groups have managed to plant a mole in the
organization.
In a complaint filed on Tuesday with the police, Sfard, and Yesh Din's
chief investigator, Lior Yavne, said that they've been approached by
reporters from Makor Rishon and free sheet Yisrael Hayom for comment
on the content of documents copied or stolen from cases dealing with
property and physical damage to Palestinians. A photograph of one of
the documents was published in Makor Rishon, a newspaper with a marked
pro-settler stance. The newspaper quoted from a dozen cases available
only to a few members of Yesh Din, and said it was in possession of
other material.
A check by Sfard's staff found that notebooks with internal memos and
call records were stolen from one of the office drawers. The missing
documents refer to Yesh Din activity, but also to other clients, and
Sfard told police the use of the documents violates attorney-client
privilege. Tel Aviv police said that the complaint was being
investigated.
"It seems we are witnessing a new and dangerous phase of the assault
on human rights organizations (sic) in Israel and the territories,"
Sfard said. "We should hope the law enforcement authorities will take
the appropriately serious view of the matter."
Uri Elitzur, editor of the Makor Rishon weekend supplement, told
Haaretz: "We do not hold any stolen documents. We didn't send in
reporters or Watergate-like plumbers, and we most certainly did not
steal any documents. The documents reached us and, as is customary
here, we cannot disclose their sources." Yisrael Hayom did not respond
to a request for comment.
2. We at Haaretz are outraged that a handful of Rabbis openly called
on Jews not to rent or sell property to Arabs. That is why we run
long articles today about how Orthodox Jews moving into secularist
neighborhoods must be stopped. They ruin the character of the
neighborhoods. They try to take over when they move in. In Ramat
Aviv some Bratslav Chassidim actually tried to persuade some local
teenagers to become more religious. This is intolerable!
3. We at Haaretz are outraged at the rising tide of "racism" in
Israel. Take for example the incident that happened this week. A
group of 14 year old Jewish teenagers in Jerusalem attacked and beat
several adult Arabs who were making passes at their teenage female
companion. Racism!, we scream at Haaretz.
Where do we see no racism? We see no racism when Arabs burn the home
of a Jew who bought a home in an Arab town near Haifa. We see no
racism when Arabs murder an American woman and stab repeatedly her
British woman companion near Beit Shemesh. We see no racism when
Palestinians murder any Arab who sells his property to Jews. We see
no racism in the idea that Jews should be prevented from living in
East Jerusalem. We see no racism when Arabs destroyed hundreds of
trees of Jewish "settlers" last week. And we see no racism when the
Hamas fires rockets into Jewish civilian areas inside the Negev, one
of which landed yesterday next to a kindergarten. In fact, in our
headline in Hebrew, we ran this: "Israel fires at Palestinians inside
Gaza; A Gaza rocket lands near a Kindergarten inside Israel." By
reversing cause and effect in that way, a bit like Hiroshimo causing
Pearl Harbor, we let everyone in the world know that it is Israeli
self-defense that causes Hamas terrorism!!
politician Amram Mitzna. Suddenly the Left cannot control its
adoration of Mitzna. The Israeli media, the occupied territories of
the Left, are also unable to control their glee.
Mitzna is capitalizing on teh fact that he has been largely out of
the spolight for a few years. He had been the head of the Labor Party
and got creamed in the elections of 2003 by the Likud under Sharon.
It was at the time teh worst showing ever for the Labor bolsheviks.
After sitting on a back bench for a while in the Knesset, Mitzna
resigned as party chair in a huff.
Now that most of the Left is disillusioned with Ehud Barak as
current Labor Commissar, Mitzna decided it is time for him to attempt
a Nixonian comeback. He is posturing to teh Far Left, to try to knock
out Barak from that side, and ran to pay homage this week to Abu Mazen
in Ramallah, leaving little doubt as to whose interests he would serve
if he were ever to be Prime Minister.
The following piece of mine appeared in AUgust 2002. It is still
relevant and accurate:
:
Israel's Most Dangerous Politician [the slick Clinton-in-a-beard
far-leftist mayor of Haifa]
OurJerusalem.com | August 19, 2002 | Steven Plaut
08/19/2002
Israel's Most Dangerous Politician
by Steven Plaut
Arutz Sheva August 18, 2002
The world's media is suddenly all ecstatic at the fact that
Generalissimo Amram Mitzna has decided to toss his kafiya into the
race for Labor Party chief. Because Mitzna is to the left of the
current party chief, 'Fuad' Ben-Eliezer, and indeed is to the left of
Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin, the Jewish anti-survivalist Left is
celebrating, and the world's anti-Jewish media has discovered a new
great messiah of hope and peace. If Mitzna takes the Labor chiefdom
and then gets elected prime minister, or so the media think, he will
lead Israel down the Oslo path to its dénouement of complete surrender
and national suicide.
Mitzna is just the latest in an endless series of retired generals
from the Israeli military (generals retire in their 40s usually) who
then enter politics, almost always through the Labor Party. Most of
these emerge as ultra-doves and similar lefties. The worst of these
took over leadership in the Labor Party and led the country into its
current lake of blood. Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak were arguably the
two worst prime ministers the country ever had. They were both
ex-generals who led the country to the brink of self-destruction. Many
other leftist ex-generals occupied numerous other power positions in
Labor.
Which brings us back to Mitzna. Amram Mitzna is the slick
Clinton-in-a-beard far-leftist mayor of Haifa. He is soft-spoken and
eloquent and may be the dirtiest politician in the country, king of
the dirty deals with Israeli oligarchs.
Mitzna had been the general in charge of the central command during
the 'First Intifada' of the late 1980s, when most of the violence was
in his turf. He dealt with it by introducing the New Strategy of
defeating Palestinian savagery by understanding it and showing his
good will and empathy for the rioters. When he left the army, he
parachuted into Haifa, where he had never been a resident, a city that
has yet to have its first non-Labor Party mayor (no longer true --
SP), and ran for mayor. As mayor of Haifa, Mitzna spent a great deal
of time courting the Far Left and letting everyone know he would be
willing to take the country to new depths of leftist Oslo
self-debasement and self-destruction. He is in favor of holding
appeasement talks with the PLO even while the PLO mass-murders Jews.
He supports concessions to the PLO even beyond those Yossi Beilin
would offer. His strategy is to challenge the other Labor leaders from
the Left and garner Arab support for his candidacy. In other words, he
is more Ehud Barak than Ehud Barak himself. As mayor, he repeatedly
courted and spoke before the Arab communist party Hadash.
Despite his cultivated speech and smooth manner, Mitzna is a corrupt
Tammany Hall politician who runs Haifa like a petit Indonesian
gangster or Third World crony gang leader. His strategy has been to
build up a power base at the expense of Haifa residents by striking
corrupt dirty deals with large contractors and builders having Party
connections. In a typical Mitzna deal, a contractor is granted special
zoning variances that allow him to build a 40 story tower on a plot of
land zoned for 3 stories and to pocket $40 million in undeserved
profit, or to construct a shopping mall on land that belongs to the
public or is supposed to be a park. In gratitude, the contractor than
quids Mitzna's quo, including funding his political career. One
contractor made so much money on the mall Mitzna allowed him to build
illegally that he could put in a bid for acquiring the Israeli
national telecom company. Mitzna has sought to turn Haifa into a Hong
Kong of 50 story monsters all to benefit his crony friends. 'Hizzonah'
Mitzna used Haifa as a base to build up a war chest and a power base,
waiting his chance to challenge the Labor Party machine and take over
the party leadership. His chance came when Ehud Barak crashed and
self-imploded.
It is not clear whether Mitzna actually believes in anything other
than getting himself elected. It is not clear whether Israel would
survive a period of Mitzna reign over the country.
A Petition Demanding Action against the Racists Calling for People to
Refuse to Rent and Sell Property to "Unwanted" Outsiders
By Steven Plaut
As you know, a bigoted racist minority in Israel is issuing calls
for people to refuse to rent and sell real estate to those considered
by these bigots as "people who do not belong." The racists demand
that those who are NOT part of their same cultural group be excluded
from their communities. By excluding outsiders, these people are
demonstrating their intolerance, their bigotry and their prejudices.
Some of the bigots issuing the call to discriminate themselves hold
public offices. There can be no excuse for this sort of
discrimination in a democracy. Enlightened people in Israel must
speak out against these calls to discriminate and against these
attempts to exclude members of the persecuted minority being targeted.
Calls to refuse to sell and rent property to the victims of this
discrimination are illegal, and those issuing the calls must be
prosecuted under Israel's anti-racism law.
In light of all of the above, we, the undersigned, hereby demand
the immediate prosecution of the residents of Ramat Aviv who have
issued calls to refuse to rent and sell property to Lubavichers and to
other Orthodox and observant Jews seeking to live in Ramat Aviv. Such
racism cannot be tolerated in 21st century Israel. Similarly, we
demand that the Hebrew University professors and their accomplices who
have been demanding that no property be sold or rented to Jews in
"Sheikh Jarrah," in "Silwan," and in other parts of East Jerusalem be
immediately indicted under Israel's anti-racism laws as racist
inciters.
All enlightened Israelis are invited to sign this statement.
Israeli Left Versus Rabbinic Freedom Of Speech
By: Steven Plaut
Date: Wednesday, December 15 2010
In recent days, one of the most important domestic controversies in
Israel has revolved around rabbinic opinions. The media are
representing this as a great debate over "racism." In reality, it is
a great debate over freedom of speech and the rights of Israelis to
express opinions disliked by its increasingly anti-democratic Left.
The ruckus began when a few dozen Israeli rabbis issued a call for
Israeli Jews not rent or sell real estate to Arabs in predominantly
Jewish neighborhoods. The background to their call had to do with
growing tensions and even violence in several towns, such as Carmiel
and Safed, where significant numbers of Arabs have moved into
predominantly Jewish neighborhoods.
By and large, the rabbis who signed the statement were not
prominent or well-known halachic authorities. Their statement carried
neither the weight of civic law nor the authority of a religious
decree. The rabbis essentially were expressing an opinion. It might
be an opinion you find objectionable, but in democracies people are
supposed to be free to say objectionable things.
Prime Minister Netanyahu denounced the rabbis who signed the
statement. But unlike most of the Israeli Left, he did not demand
they be stripped of their freedom of speech. Among others who spoke
out against those rabbis were three of Israel's most respected haredi
rabbis - Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman and
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. They were joined in their opposition by other
leading haredi rabbis and even by rabbis living in the West Bank.
Following Rabbi Elyashiv's criticism, at least five of the
signatories withdrew their support from the statement.
But Israel's anti-democratic Left did not limit itself to expressing
disagreement with or condemnation of the opinions contained in the
statement of the rabbis. The Israeli Left was almost unanimous in
insisting the rabbis be stripped of their rights to express
controversial opinions altogether. Arabs and far leftists in Israel
can cheer on Arab terrorists who murder Jews and can demand Israel's
obliteration; that is protected speech. Tenured radicals at the
universities can call for Israel to be annihilated and can support
worldwide anti-Israel boycotts; that, too, is protected speech. But
in the Left's worldview, rabbis expressing an opinion with which most
Israelis probably disagree are not entitled to the same freedom of expression.
Several representatives of the far-left Meretz Party petitioned the
attorney general to indict the rabbis as criminals. They were joined
in that call by a number of Israeli leftist academics, journalists,
and public figures.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) - which has never
missed a chance to overlook infringements of the freedom of
expression of non-leftists in Israel - denounced the rabbis who
signed the statement and called on the prime minister to take
punitive action against them. Israel's minority affairs minister,
Avishay Braverman, asked the justice minister to begin the process of
immediate suspension of one of the signers, Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu,
from his post as municipal rabbi of Safed. (Earlier this year,
Braverman demanded that Jews spend Yom Kippur atoning for their
"oppression" of Arabs.)
Arab Knesset Member Ahmed Tibi took time off from cheering on jihad
to denounce the rabbis who had signed the statement as "racists." He
has never gotten around to denouncing as racists any terrorists who
murder Jews or Arab arsonists who set forest fires.
Spokesmen for the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, suddenly seized by an
attack of political correctness, released a statement condemning the
rabbis' letter, calling it "a severe blow to the basic values of our
lives as Jews and people living in a democratic country." These same
folks have never issued a statement condemning those who demand East
Jerusalem be kept judenrein.
It's one thing to disagree with what some rabbis say, and quite
another to demand they be indicted as felons for expressing their
opinions. Once again, as has happened so often in Israel, expression
of non-leftist opinion is being criminalized, and leftists are
attempting to use the police and courts to silence their political
adversaries. Prosecution has become the favored response of choice by
leftists incapable of convincing the Israeli public of the merits of
their ideas.
I don't think a single one of those demanding that the rabbis signing
the statement be prosecuted has ever spoken out against the summary
execution by the Palestinian Authority of Arabs who dare sell their
property to Jews. Not a single leftist wringing his hands over the
supposed racism in the statement of the rabbis condemned the recent
death threats against young Kochav Segal Halevi, a Jew who purchased
an apartment in the Arab town of Iblin (not far from Haifa).
It's safe to venture that not a single one had anything to say about
the inability of Jews to buy or rent property in Arab towns, villages
and neighborhoods because of threats of violence; or that a single
one had anything to say about the common practice by Arabs living in
Arab towns excluding groups of other Arabs from living with them; or
that a single one condemned the racist expulsion of every single Jew
living in the Gaza Strip.
2. The link between Wikileaks and Neo-Nazis:
Why is WikiLeaks employing a well-known Holocaust denier and his disgraced son?
Michael C. Moynihan | December 14, 2010
http://reason.com/archives/2010/12/14/the-assange-employees/print
stands for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. The main BDS
organization is PACBI.org, which is run by an Arab jihadist graduate
student at Tel Aviv University, Omar Barghouti. There now operates,
however, an anti-BDS group, which runs the anti-BDS web site
PACBI.com, where ITS pacbi name stands for Pathetic Assholes
Conspiring to Boycott Israel. Note the com at the end of the web
address instead of the org. (It also runs PACBI.net) Please visit
PACBI.com. (Note the cute imitation is pages have to the PACBI.org
site!)
Moreover, I wanted to solicit your assistance in drawing traffic to Pacbi.com
Please visit the site regularly. But even more importantly, please
post links to Pacbi.com wherever you can, especially on anti-Israel
web sites and blogs and magazines. We want as many of the
anti-Semitic blogs as possible to be directing people to the PACBI.com
site!!
We also want as many people as people who are actually trying to reach
the anti-Semitic PACBI group to find themselves at the pro-Israel
PACBI.com site!
And we want the PACBI.com site to be the first site showing up when
people go a-googling for the word pacbi or for the term BDS.
Please help!
2. Dov Lautman is an Israeli industrial oligarch, with close
political ties to the Israeli Labor Party and the Left. His wife is
an official in the New Israel Fund. Lautman has long been the leading
proponent in Israel of corporate welfare, where corporation receive
welfare stipends from the government. He is Israel's leading
protectionist and opponent of free markets. He owns some textile
corporations, while long lived off Israeli governmental welfare
support, although he has moved some to Jordan where he hires cheaper
workers. He is so leftist that he was awarded an Israel Prize. He is
Executive Chairman of the "Shimon Peres Center" and is involved in
lots of other lefty stuff. Together with Palestinian terrorist Saeb
Erakat he set up the "Million Voices to End the Conflict." He is
also involved in Yossi Beilin's "Geneva Misunderstandings" proposal to
end the conflict by means of Israeli capitulation.
Now, it turns out that Lautman and his companies have just been
targeted for boycotts by the anti-Semites in the BDS = Boycott,
Divest, Sanctions pogrom. Even better, it turns out that most of the
BDS groups are getting money from the New Israel Fund, the very same
New Israel Fund where Mrs. Lautman works. So Lautman's business are
being attacked and vilified by the very same people being funded by
the offices of Mrs. Lautman! (Makor Rishon last week did a large
expose on this story.)
Talk about poetic justice!
3. Special report prepared for the Israel government. After careful
and painstaking research, we – the Commission on Illegal Foreign
Infiltrators from Africa Now in Israel – have reached the conclusion
that the very best way to INCREASE the number of Africans sneaking
illegally into Israel is to offer to pay $500 to each infiltrator who
is caught and "agrees" to be sent out of the country. This should
lead to hundreds of thousands of new infiltrators coming into the
country in order to get the $500 reward, which is equal to two years
income in some African countries.
4. Yo de lay hee ho: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/141152
1. Anyone who denies that the Israeli mainstream media are leftist
propaganda outfits self-conscripted as servants to the Left will have
to explain why the same Israeli media devoted far, FAR more attention
to the fact that the Palestinian Authority reluctantly sent Israel a
couple of rusty fire trucks on the last day of the Carmel fire than it
did to the fact that scores of arson terrorist fires were being set
all over the country by Arabs, possible Arab arson terrorists
dispatched by the very same Palestinian Authority.
2. Hillary Clinton just called for all sides to set now the final
borders for a future Palestinian state. I think she is onto something
here. I have volunteered to set those borders. It will cover the
entire territory of Arkansas from the Louisiana border to the Missouri
border, from the Mississippi to Oklahoma. In fact, I think we can
adapt the lyrics of the Woody Guthrie song to invent for them an
imaginary national anthem for the imaginary Palestinian nation.
3. The Prime Minister Turkey insists that Israel apologize for its
defending itself against the terrorist ships sent in by Turkey that
attacked the Israeli navy, and he wants the apology before normalizing
diplomatic relations. I think he is onto something. I have
volunteered to issue the apologize. So on behalf of all of Israel, we
hereby apologize for not having torpedoed the "Rachel Corrie" and the
other terrorist ships in the terrorist flotilla. We are sorry and are
really ashamed of ourselves.
4. Jewish self-denial not the way to peace:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3998018,00.html
The Mt. Carmel Inferno
Posted By Steven Plaut On December 8, 2010 @ 12:40 am In FrontPage | 4 Comments
Now send and gather all of Israel to Me on Mount Carmel….Then the fire
of the Lord fell and devoured the sacrifice and the wood and the
stones and the dust and the water. — Kings I 18: 19, 38
"Carmel" means the orchard of God in Hebrew.
The Bulgarian firefighters have agreed to let me tag along with them
as they make their way up the gullies in the Carmel Forest, seeking
out flames still burning uncontrolled. I walk with Mikhail, probably
the only Bulgarian firefighter on earth who speaks Hebrew. He is also
a medic, and had earlier done some work in Israel; long enough to pick
up basic Hebrew. He and the other Bulgarian firefighters just came
down from the command center at the University of Haifa. His
colleagues are amused that an aging professor from the same university
wants to accompany them. One tells Mikhail to explain to me that he
wants to come back later to be a student in my university. A religious
couple from Haifa comes out of the bushes carrying large boxes of
sufganiyot, Hannuka cakes, and distributes them to the firefighters,
thanking each of them personally with a "Spaseeba!"
All around us the brush and trees are smoking. Every gust of wind
stirs up ash. Countless fire-fighting planes circle overhead,
interrupted by the circling giant American 747 that has just arrived.
The command-and-control center for the entire battle against the
fires has been set up on the University of Haifa campus. A parking
lot there contains so many Russian firefighters that a large Russian
flag has been raised. The firefighters are amazed when all of the
campus security staff speak and joke with them freely in Russian, and
when they see so many posters on billboards in Russian. They are
commanded by the Russian Deputy Minister for National Emergencies, the
same fellow who led the battle against the forest fires around Moscow
last summer. The soft-spoken guy is a giant, a Russian Paul Bunyon,
and seems capable of blowing out forest fires with only his breath.
These were not the Hannuka flames Israel was expecting. On the first
day of the festival, the top of Mount Carmel looked like one of those
volcanoes you see on the National Geographic Channel. The pillar of
smoke could be seen from 50 miles away. Gusts of wind bring ash and
smoke into Haifa. Residents of some streets closest to the flames are
evacuated. Friends and relatives from around the country call and
offer us sanctuary if we need it. It feels a lot like the summer of
2006, when Haifa was the target of hundreds of rockets fired by
Hezb'Allah terrorists during the Lebanese War. The man at the meat
counter in the supermarket jokes with me; if the wind changes
direction he will be holding a special sale on barbecued chickens that
never even had to be put into the oven. We are all sold out of
marshmallows, he adds.
But it was hard to keep a sense of humor in the midst of Israel's
worst-ever natural disaster, one in which over 40 Israelis died in the
flames. Besides the bus full of prison service cadets, the victims
included a 16-year old Haifa boy who had long served as a volunteer
fireman with one of the brigades. He was overcome after he rushed
into the conflagration with his colleagues. Another victim was the
Haifa Chief of Police, a courageous 52-year old woman, Ahuva Tomer,
who died from burns. She was born in the USSR and came to Israel
alone as an infant. But do not expect her courage and ordeal to
arouse any sympathy from radical feminists. They are too busy
cheering on the Hamas terrorists.
There is still debate about the exact cause of the inferno. The
government has been claiming that a teenager from the Druse town of
Usafiya, located just behind the University of Haifa, was supposedly
puffing on a nargila waterpipe near a garbage dump. There is
widespread public suspicion that the Israeli government is covering up
a grand act of Arab arson in order to avoid Jewish anger at the perps.
Even if the government's explanation is correct, the widespread
public disbelief is directly due to the fact that there have been so
many cases of Arab arson in Israeli forests in the past. Throughout
the large fire last week, the Israeli police repeatedly claimed that
it was started as arson, before changing their line. The Druse member
of the Israeli parliament, Ayoub Kara, also stated his belief that it
was arson.
Whatever the real cause of the Mt. Carmel inferno, there could be no
doubt whatsoever about the countless other fires being set all over
the country while the international team of firefighters was busy
battling the main blaze. These were all, or nearly all, arson attacks
by Israeli Arab terrorists. For many years, forest fires in Israel
have been set deliberately as acts of ecological terror, including
more than one on Mt. Carmel itself. The government prettifies the
arson and claims that the fires might just have accidental causes. No
one in Israel believes them.
While the international crews were fighting the Mt. Carmel fire,
scores — perhaps even hundreds — of fires were deliberately being set
by Israeli Arabs all over the country. In many cases, one knew that
it was arson because a fire would start in a single area at 5 or 6
different points all at the same time. That is one humongous nargila
waterpipe. Just as often as the police and media confirmed that arson
was the cause of these fires, the Israeli Minister for Minority
Affairs, leftist Avishai Braverman, denied it and demanded that
Israelis stop laying blame. I guess he sees magical waterpipes going
berserk all over the place. This is the same Braverman who served for
many years as the President of Ben Gurion University and — as such —
turned it into Israel's worst center of anti-Zionist extremism and
tenured treason.
Whether the large Mt. Carmel fire turns out to have been set
accidentally or deliberately, Israel has for years been the victim of
Arab ecological terror. The world media reports every single incident
in the West Bank when Arabs claim that Jewish "settlers" have burned
or vandalized Palestinian olive trees (while ignoring when the trees
belonging to the "settlers" are vandalized). They do so even after
the many cases where leftists, foreign "anarchists," and
Palestinian-Arabs have been photographed by the mainstream media
vandalizing the trees themselves to make it look like "settlers" were
responsible. Yet nary a word in the mainstream media about the
countless acts of Arab arson against Israeli forests.
These are the very same Arabs who are deemed by their apologists to be
so attached to the holy land of Palestine that they desperately need
to be given their own homeland there. People who adore their sacred
land so deeply that they cannot part with a single blade of grass,
even if that is what it takes to allow the Jews to have their own
state. Well, now the whole world can behold the real nature of Arab
love for the Holy Land, manifested in a campaign to torch it. This is
a full-fledged ecological terrorist assault against Israeli Jews,
conducted by Israeli Arab terrorists and their collaborators. Haifa
Radio reported that Arabs in the nearby town of Faradeis were dancing
in joy at the sight of Jewish homes going up in flames. Much of the
rest of the Arab world was cheering the devastation.
***
The Bulgarian firefighters take a breather and rest under a tree that
has survived. A sudden breeze makes a small smoking stack of leaves
near us emit some flames a few inches high. For the Bulgarians it is
not worth bothering with. I decide to contribute my own effort to
this international fight against the Mt. Carmel fire, and extinguish
the little flames the way Boy Scouts put out campfires. The
Bulgarians smile and applaud, every last one of them.
Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com
URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2010/12/08/the-mt-carmel-inferno/
2. Dersh on Underhanded Obama:
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/12/08/wikileaks-contradicts-obama-administration-on-iran/
3. Gevalt: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3994750,00.html
by a careless 14 year old Druse boy smoking a nargila waterpipe.
Maybe.
But let us note that the government of Israel is pursuing a "peace
process" based entirely on pretense and make-believe and has been
doing so for almost 2 decades.
And let us note one more thing. The Israeli government has enormous
financial motivation to pretend that arson was in fact accident!
Why?
Because under Israeli law, the government itself is responsible for
compensating all those who lost property or suffered damages as a
result of terrorism, including terrorist arson and deliberately set fires.
.
In the case of property loss due to an accidental fire, people simply
collect compensation from their own private insurance companies.
Thomas just made a "momentary slip": Hagit Limor
From the Wall St Journal
Worse Than Bigoted
Helen Thomas's latest may be too much for the Society of Professional
Journalists.
By JAMES TARANTO
If your lifelong ambition is to win the Helen Thomas Spirit of
Diversity Award from Detroit's Wayne State University, you might as
well end it all now. Thomas's alma mater terminated the award Friday
"after she made controversial remarks in Dearborn on Thursday,"
reports the Detroit Free Press.
Things move more slowly at the Society of Professional Journalists,
whose website still advertises the Helen Thomas Award for Lifetime
Achievement and describes Thomas as "a living icon of journalism for
her dogged pursuit of the truth in a career that has spanned almost 60
years." Thomas said on Thursday: "Congress, the White House, and
Hollywood, Wall Street, are owned by the Zionists." Apparently the
truth outran her.
We asked SPJ if it plans to continue offering the award in light of
Thomas's latest comments. The society's president, Hagit Limor,
quickly got back to us by email. She wrote: "I am placing this item on
the agenda for consideration at the next executive board meeting,"
which will be held Jan. 8.
Having finally managed to reach an SPJ executive--Limor's predecessor,
Kevin Smith, stonewalled us six months ago--we asked Limor why the
society decided to continue the award after Thomas's last eruption, in
which she demanded that Israeli Jews go "home"--that is, that they
leave their homes and emigrate to the countries whence their ancestors
came. Limor replied: "We discussed the issue at our exec board meeting
in July 2010. The majority believed this to be a one-time slip that
didn't change Ms. Thomas's lifetime of service, which is what we were
honoring."
Associated Press
Journalism icon?
As you might expect, Thomas is not happy with Wayne State's decision.
"The leaders of Wayne State University have made a mockery of the
First Amendment and disgraced their understanding of its inherent
freedom of speech and the press," she told the Free Press. "The
university also has betrayed academic freedom--a sad day for its
students."
We suppose she could hire a lawyer and sue Wayne State on the ground
that removing her name from the award is tantamount to censorship of
protected speech. We like the university's odds of prevailing in that
one. As for academic freedom, are we to understand that Thomas claims
to be engaged in scholarship?
It must be said that Thomas's comment about "Zionists" was taken out
of context and made to look, in most news accounts, like a bigoted
rant. It was that, but it was also something even more pernicious.
Blogger Robert Stacy McCain transcribed the remark in context:
If we invade a country like Iraq for no reason that's valid, no
weapons of mass destruction, no ties to al-Qaeda--a very bad dictator,
yes. But is that a reason to kill thousands of people? No reason to
invade Aghanistan--no president has yet been able to defend it or
explain it. . . . To kill or die, for what? . . . There is an actual
campaign constantly, since I've been at the White House. Every
president has known the truth about the Arab world, but they have not
been able to act for the truth. And the whole question of money
involved in politics--we are owned by propagandists against the Arabs.
There's no question about that. Congress, the White House, and
Hollywood, Wall Street, are owned by the Zionists. No question in my
opinion. They put their money where there mouth is.
Here is McCain's commentary:
What Thomas is saying is that America waged war in Afghanistan and
Iraq entirely because of "Zionist" influence.
Is her assertion true? Was there "no reason"--or "no reason that's
valid"--for either of these military campaigns? Have thousands of
American soldiers, and many thousands of Iraqis and Aghans, died
merely to satisfy the blood-lust of Zionist Jews?
Leaving aside any debate about the overall wisdom of Bush-era foreign
policy, is it really the case that the root of the world's problems is
the insidious (and allegedly insuperable) influence of a Jewish
conspiracy?
Or is it not rather the case, as I am inclined to believe, that the
incitement of hatred against Israel by Arab demagogues--whose ranks
Helen Thomas proudly joins--is the real root of this problem?
Even this, however, doesn't quite go far enough. Helen Thomas is
ethnically Arab, but she is a natural-born citizen of America. She
spoke to an Arab-American group called Arab Detroit. (The Free Press
claims that "a majority" of her audience was "non-Arab," but it's not
clear how the reporter would have ascertained that.)
That is to say, Thomas is an American, making an ethnically based
appeal to fellow citizens. She urges Americans of Arab origin not only
to view "Zionists" as their enemy but also to regard their own
government--in a time of war--as being under the control of that
enemy.
In doing so, she is trading on her reputation as, in the words of the
Society of Professional Journalists, "a living icon of journalism for
her dogged pursuit of the truth in a career that has spanned almost 60
years." We have long wondered what if anything she did to deserve that
reputation, so we took the opportunity to ask SPJ president Limor if
she could give us examples of stories Thomas had broken or advanced,
risks she had taken on behalf of the public's right to know, or
original analytical insights she had offered. Limor's response:
The Lifetime Achievement award honors just that, not any specific
story. Helen Thomas filed countless reports covering 10 presidents
since the 1960s. Her body of work is unmatched on this beat; thus SPJ
attached her name to our award for lifetime achievement.
This reinforces our suspicion that the accolades for Thomas are based
entirely on the quantity rather than the quality of her work. Instead
of a living icon of journalism, she would be more accurately described
as an icon of long life who used to work in journalism.
When the executive board meets next month, we hope they'll consider
this suggestion from reader John Steele Gordon: "If the SPJ decides to
change the name, how about calling it the Daniel Pearl Award for
Lifetime Achievement? He worked as a journalist until the moment he
died. Helen Thomas got to retire."
**
Want to write to or call Hagit Limor? She can be reached at hlimor@wcpo.com
President
Hagit Limor
Investigative Reporter
WCPO-TV
1720 Gilbert Avenue
Cincinnati, OH 45202
(513) 852-4012
Photo 1: Israeli fire fighter pulling hose as Bulgarian fire fighter
shpritzes flames
Photo 2: a pathetic professor from the University of Haifa joins in
the battle against the flames (anyone recognize him?)
Photo 3: Russian general and Depity Minister of National Emergencies
helping the same professor
I am not making this up - the name on his chest in Russian letters is Plat!!!
My long lost cousin Dmitri?