Using law to fight a war
By Melanie PHILLIPS
Jewish Chronicle
21 March 2008
http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles-new/?p=574
Asymmetric warfare is normally defined as the weak pitting
themselves against forces equipped with infinitely superior
military power.
But in fact, unlike conventional warfare between states,
asymmetric warfare conceals the real drivers of the
aggression - those regimes which finance, recruit, arm and
train those who fire rockets at civilians or turn themselves
into human bombs.
Such concealment paralyses countries which need to protect
their citizens against such terror. Their military might
becomes a boomerang when, as happened during Israel's recent
action in Gaza, the terrorists place women and children on
the rooftops during air-raids in order to maximise civilian
casualties.
The credulous West accordingly sees an inhuman Israel
killing unarmed innocents. The regimes whose strategic aim
is the death of such innocents as well as the slaughter of
Israelis are totally absent from the false picture imprinted
upon the West's collective retina.
Since asymmetric warfare thus limits the capacity of armies
to bring about a military solution, defenders of
civilisation have to start thinking outside the box.
In Israel a law centre, Shurat Ha'din, is doing just that.
It is forcing the terror-masters onto a different
battleground altogether - the courtrooms of America, Europe
and Israel.
Inspired by the Southern Poverty Law Centre in the US, which
used civil litigation to cripple the Ku Klux Klan, the
lawyers of Shurat Ha'din have helped hundreds of Israeli
terror victims file civil suits against Palestinian terror
groups and their financial patrons.
As leading lights in the organisation told a conference in
Rome last week, such achievements have an important
strategic value. In suing Iran, Syria and the EU for
bankrolling terrorists and in bringing cases against the
Palestinian Authority and Hamas for actual attacks, they
shrink the global space in which the sponsors of terrorism
otherwise enjoy virtually free rein to run their infernal
funding networks.
In an American court, for example, Shurat Ha'din won a $200
million judgment against the PA on behalf of the family of
an American Jew, who was in the band at a batmitzvah party
in Israel which was blown up in a human-bomb attack by a PA
policeman.
While the PA fights this judgment - on the eye-popping
grounds that the attack on the batmitzvah party was a
'legitimate act of war' - its funds are frozen. This is
causing it so much damage that it asked the State Department
to intervene; two weeks ago, State finally refused.
Other lawsuits brought by Shurat Ha'din are similarly
disrupting the flow of terrorist funds. The Jordan-based
Arab Bank has paid families of human-bomb terrorists
'rewards' for murdering Jews. Since the Arab Bank's NY
branch brought it under US jurisdiction, Shurat Ha'din
launched a lawsuit against it there for $50 million. The
bank promptly announced it would shut its NY branch to avoid
liability - which it has not been allowed to do.
When Hamas came to power, the US and EU froze all PA funding
that would go to Hamas - which in response raised $40
million from terror regimes.
The Arab League told Hamas that it would open a bank account
in Cairo from which it would transfer this money to Gaza.
Since the Arab League had an office in Washington DC, Shurat
Ha'din filed a suit in that city to freeze the money in the
Cairo bank account on the grounds that it should be paid
instead to the Jewish families whose lives Hamas had
destroyed.
Even though diplomatic cravenness in America, Israel and
Europe creates problems in enforcing such judgments, the
very fact they are made forces the terror-masters onto the
back foot. Banks think twice before giving money to terror
groups. Even a case in Italy which Shurat Ha'din lost
against Iran's national oil company forced Iran to shift
funds from Rome to Thailand. As the Palestinian banks only
deal in euros and dollars, terror finding was once again
disrupted.
Since London is arguably the most important centre of all
for the funding of global terror, one might think that the
British courts would play a key role in this strategy of
bankrupting the Islamists. Think again. For this to happen,
such lawsuits need to be filed by British lawyers (on a pro
bono basis). But every British lawyer - and for that, read
Jewish lawyer - asked to do so by Shurat Ha'din has refused.
Is this not shameful? On the battlefield of the mind, the
Islamists are winning. But on the battlefield of the courts,
they are losing.
British Jews are hardly conspicuous by their absence in
Britain's legal circles. Surely they of all people should be
queuing up to use the law to cut the terror-funding networks
and defeat the devious godfathers of the vile and
manipulative war against the Jews?
__._,_.___
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
BIPARTISAN SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL IN OZ PARLIAMENT
USUAL SUSPECTS TRY TO BLAME ISRAEL FOR THE PALESTINIANS' LACK OF SELF-DETERMINATION.
Advertisement in The AUSTRALIAN tries to undermine today's bipartisan Motion.
The Friends of Palestine and their associates would do better to spend their moneys and energies in encouraging their Arab brethren to become responsible citizens and prove, like Israel has done, that they can form themselves into a responsible national entity which can live in peace and harmony with its neighbours.
.
In 1947 there was no national group calling itself "Palestinian" among the Arab inhabitants and therefore there was no one to take up the UN offer of the Partition Plan to form themselves into another State alongside Israel. While the combined Arab armies surrounding the fledgling Jewish nation of Israel attacked it from all sides in '48/'49, they had no intention of doing anything other than obliterating Palestine altogether.
Hamas and the hard-line Islamists continue and are still intent on fulfilling their infamous aims even after 60 years. Which other sovereign nation and UN member has to argue for its legitimacy? How dare these signatories to the advertisement argue against our Government's principled stand in protecting the right of Israel to exist in secure and legitimate boundaries?
Congratulations to the Editors of THE AUSTRALIAN newspaper for its fair and unbiased coverage of the true situation vis-a-vis Israel and its neighbours!
Advertisement in The AUSTRALIAN tries to undermine today's bipartisan Motion.
The Friends of Palestine and their associates would do better to spend their moneys and energies in encouraging their Arab brethren to become responsible citizens and prove, like Israel has done, that they can form themselves into a responsible national entity which can live in peace and harmony with its neighbours.
.
In 1947 there was no national group calling itself "Palestinian" among the Arab inhabitants and therefore there was no one to take up the UN offer of the Partition Plan to form themselves into another State alongside Israel. While the combined Arab armies surrounding the fledgling Jewish nation of Israel attacked it from all sides in '48/'49, they had no intention of doing anything other than obliterating Palestine altogether.
Hamas and the hard-line Islamists continue and are still intent on fulfilling their infamous aims even after 60 years. Which other sovereign nation and UN member has to argue for its legitimacy? How dare these signatories to the advertisement argue against our Government's principled stand in protecting the right of Israel to exist in secure and legitimate boundaries?
Congratulations to the Editors of THE AUSTRALIAN newspaper for its fair and unbiased coverage of the true situation vis-a-vis Israel and its neighbours!
Friday, March 07, 2008
TERRORIST MASSACRE IN JERUSALEM, 7th March 2008.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-halevi2mar02,0,7450703,print.story
Los Angeles Times: The end of the 'guilty Israeli'
Yossi Klein-Halevi says (on 2nd March, before the massacre):
Gaza's people are being held hostage to a political fantasy. And the
international community is abetting the tragedy. The U.N. actually
considers Palestinians to be permanent refugees, to be protected in
squalid but subsidized camps even though they live in their own
homeland of Gaza, under their own government.
So long as Gaza refuses to heal itself, Israelis will rightly suspect that the Palestinian goal remains Israel's destruction. Not even a full withdrawal from the West Bank, they fear, will end the war, any more than the pullout from Gaza stopped the rockets. Israel's crime isn't occupying but existing.
And so we move toward the next terrible round of conflict. This time, though, for all our anguish, we will feel a lot less remorse. Because even guilty Israelis realize that, until our neighbors care more about building their state than undermining ours, the misery of Gaza will persist. "
[Yossi Klein Halevi is a senior fellow in the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem and author of "At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for Hope with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land." ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Terrorist massacre in Jerusalem: The truth is louder than a Kalatchnikov
Amy Isseroff writes:
07.03. 2008
http://www.zionism-israel.com/log/archives/00000503.html
"There were ten attack warnings in Jerusalem on Thursday. In any case, we can assume that whoever planned it was doing the bid of the Iranian Mullahs, who are intent on fighting the American Great Satan to the last Palestinian Arab and Israeli Jew.
The massacre has generated a certain amount of unwonted solidarity in Israel, and even a bit of support abroad. Ha'aretz has taken the unusual step of labeling it a terrorist attack, and calling the killer a "terrorist" rather than a "gunman" or a "militant." Of course, the BBC described it as an "attack" by a "gunman," but they did at least mention the bloodthirsty jubilation in Gaza and the official announcements of support by Hamas.
--------
The Post put out a small edition despite the bombing (see Palestine Post).
To some of our readers, the Post's reaction may seem very strange. It did not blame other Zionists or Jews for the attack. It did not advise stopping the "cycle of violence." Nor did they call for. bloodthirsty revenge or replacing the Zionist leadership with more religious personnel. It blamed the terrorists who carried out the bombing, an obvious idea that doesn't seem to have occurred to many people this week.
The Post editorial began
The truth is louder than TNT and burns brighter than the flames of arson.
It is time for everyone to remember and understand that unity, grim resolve and cool heads are our greatest assets. The truth is brighter than blowhard airheaded politicos and rabbis, and louder than an AK-47.
Ami Isseroff
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[N.B. The Yeshivah attacked is part of the Religious Zionist Movement, whose students fight in the IDF to protect their country, withou waiting for Moshiach to help them.]
3/2008 2:01 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The difference between some journalists, (e,g, like Ed O'Loughlin of The Age) and others, like this true Australian journalist's sense of 'fair go', is shown in the following article !
----------------------------------------------------------------------: Islamists leave Israel no choice |
The Australian
(Greg Sheridan, Foreign Ed.)
> http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23337782-7583,00.html
"On Monday night, the ABC's Lateline program ran a report on the suffering of civilians in Gaza, an absolutely legitimate subject. Among the heart-rending footage there was an interview with a Gazan civilian who understandably complained bitterly about Israel's actions. But the ABC reporter didn't ask the absolutely obvious question: Do you wish your leaders would stop firing missiles into Israel, which make inevitable both the economic blockade and the Israeli military response? The ABC, as usual, was following more or less exactly the terrorists' preferred script for the Western media. Islamist terrorists have always been centrally concerned with the Western media and their understanding of its story presentation dynamics is acute, as this episode demonstrates. Hamas gets to sheet all blame to Israel.
Second, Hamas is trying to radicalise more Palestinian opinion. Palestinian politics has evolved from nationalism to religious extremism as the rise of Hamas demonstrates."
---------------------------------------------
As far as the American initiative is concerned,- it is not just about America, Israel and Fatah vs. Hamas or Hizbollah. It is about the Saudis and Jordanians and Egyptians vs. Iranians and Syrians and.......
As Sheridan puts it: "And finally, Hamas may well be operating in very close concert with its sponsors, Iran and Syria. There is tremendous Sunni Arab concern about the growing power of Iran, evident not least in the bloody political vacuum in Lebanon.
A crisis in Gaza forces the forthcoming Arab summit to focus on the Palestinians, rather than Syria's murderous campaign to prevent the emergence of a democratic Lebanon. "
-------------------------------------------------------
Some people believe Israel and America should talk to Hamas and all would be honky-dory!
If the politics of hate were that simple, - i.e." let's talk it over!",- would any conflict escalate to murderous wars over centuries? If the Sunnis and Shias keep killing each other, what can we expect from them vis-a-vis the Jews? Or the Christian world for that matter?
Too difficult for our laypeople's simple minds to comprehend, but there it is! Helping our enemies in their propaganda war doesn't do anything for anybody, except that it extends the conflict.
Los Angeles Times: The end of the 'guilty Israeli'
Yossi Klein-Halevi says (on 2nd March, before the massacre):
Gaza's people are being held hostage to a political fantasy. And the
international community is abetting the tragedy. The U.N. actually
considers Palestinians to be permanent refugees, to be protected in
squalid but subsidized camps even though they live in their own
homeland of Gaza, under their own government.
So long as Gaza refuses to heal itself, Israelis will rightly suspect that the Palestinian goal remains Israel's destruction. Not even a full withdrawal from the West Bank, they fear, will end the war, any more than the pullout from Gaza stopped the rockets. Israel's crime isn't occupying but existing.
And so we move toward the next terrible round of conflict. This time, though, for all our anguish, we will feel a lot less remorse. Because even guilty Israelis realize that, until our neighbors care more about building their state than undermining ours, the misery of Gaza will persist. "
[Yossi Klein Halevi is a senior fellow in the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem and author of "At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for Hope with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land." ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Terrorist massacre in Jerusalem: The truth is louder than a Kalatchnikov
Amy Isseroff writes:
07.03. 2008
http://www.zionism-israel.com/log/archives/00000503.html
"There were ten attack warnings in Jerusalem on Thursday. In any case, we can assume that whoever planned it was doing the bid of the Iranian Mullahs, who are intent on fighting the American Great Satan to the last Palestinian Arab and Israeli Jew.
The massacre has generated a certain amount of unwonted solidarity in Israel, and even a bit of support abroad. Ha'aretz has taken the unusual step of labeling it a terrorist attack, and calling the killer a "terrorist" rather than a "gunman" or a "militant." Of course, the BBC described it as an "attack" by a "gunman," but they did at least mention the bloodthirsty jubilation in Gaza and the official announcements of support by Hamas.
--------
The Post put out a small edition despite the bombing (see Palestine Post).
To some of our readers, the Post's reaction may seem very strange. It did not blame other Zionists or Jews for the attack. It did not advise stopping the "cycle of violence." Nor did they call for. bloodthirsty revenge or replacing the Zionist leadership with more religious personnel. It blamed the terrorists who carried out the bombing, an obvious idea that doesn't seem to have occurred to many people this week.
The Post editorial began
The truth is louder than TNT and burns brighter than the flames of arson.
It is time for everyone to remember and understand that unity, grim resolve and cool heads are our greatest assets. The truth is brighter than blowhard airheaded politicos and rabbis, and louder than an AK-47.
Ami Isseroff
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[N.B. The Yeshivah attacked is part of the Religious Zionist Movement, whose students fight in the IDF to protect their country, withou waiting for Moshiach to help them.]
3/2008 2:01 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The difference between some journalists, (e,g, like Ed O'Loughlin of The Age) and others, like this true Australian journalist's sense of 'fair go', is shown in the following article !
----------------------------------------------------------------------: Islamists leave Israel no choice |
The Australian
(Greg Sheridan, Foreign Ed.)
> http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23337782-7583,00.html
"On Monday night, the ABC's Lateline program ran a report on the suffering of civilians in Gaza, an absolutely legitimate subject. Among the heart-rending footage there was an interview with a Gazan civilian who understandably complained bitterly about Israel's actions. But the ABC reporter didn't ask the absolutely obvious question: Do you wish your leaders would stop firing missiles into Israel, which make inevitable both the economic blockade and the Israeli military response? The ABC, as usual, was following more or less exactly the terrorists' preferred script for the Western media. Islamist terrorists have always been centrally concerned with the Western media and their understanding of its story presentation dynamics is acute, as this episode demonstrates. Hamas gets to sheet all blame to Israel.
Second, Hamas is trying to radicalise more Palestinian opinion. Palestinian politics has evolved from nationalism to religious extremism as the rise of Hamas demonstrates."
---------------------------------------------
As far as the American initiative is concerned,- it is not just about America, Israel and Fatah vs. Hamas or Hizbollah. It is about the Saudis and Jordanians and Egyptians vs. Iranians and Syrians and.......
As Sheridan puts it: "And finally, Hamas may well be operating in very close concert with its sponsors, Iran and Syria. There is tremendous Sunni Arab concern about the growing power of Iran, evident not least in the bloody political vacuum in Lebanon.
A crisis in Gaza forces the forthcoming Arab summit to focus on the Palestinians, rather than Syria's murderous campaign to prevent the emergence of a democratic Lebanon. "
-------------------------------------------------------
Some people believe Israel and America should talk to Hamas and all would be honky-dory!
If the politics of hate were that simple, - i.e." let's talk it over!",- would any conflict escalate to murderous wars over centuries? If the Sunnis and Shias keep killing each other, what can we expect from them vis-a-vis the Jews? Or the Christian world for that matter?
Too difficult for our laypeople's simple minds to comprehend, but there it is! Helping our enemies in their propaganda war doesn't do anything for anybody, except that it extends the conflict.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
ZIONOPHOBIA?
ISRAEL INSIDER
Diagnosing Zionophobia and curing it
By Gil Troy
February 24, 2008
In 1882, a Russian Jewish physician named Leon Pinsker diagnosed "Judeophobia," the irrational Jew-hatred, blighting enlightened Europeans. On February 24th and 25th, 126 years later, delegates from 45 countries will convene in Jerusalem to attend the International Conference for the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism, organized by the Israeli Foreign Ministry's Department of Combating Antisemitism headed by Aviva Raz-Shechter. The Forum's venue proves that Jews' statelessness, which Dr. Pinsker blamed for causing anti-Semitism, has ended. Tragically, an irrational hatred of that Jewish state has morphed this ancient disease into a new affliction: Zionophobia.
Zionophobia is the irrational hatred of Israel and Jewish nationalism, meaning Zionism. Rooted in traditional Judeophobia - and in genuine sympathy for the Palestinian predicament -- it masks this antisemitism by demonizing Israel in the guise of defending the downtrodden. By treating Israel as the world's only pariah state it assails the essence of Zionism, which demanded equal treatment for the Jewish nation.
Zionophobia singles out the Jews, holding Israel to an artificially high standard, while ignoring Israel's unique blend of liberal, democratic, and Jewish values. Only Israel remains on probation 60 years after its founding, with its legitimacy seemingly contingent on good behavior. No one questions the legitimacy of, say, Pakistan, despite being artificially carved out of the British Raj - and rarely a constructive force in the world. This double standard marks Zionophobia as a strain of a broader disease, the modern tendency to judge all Western nations harshly, but especially the United States and its allies, while absolving Third World nations of wrongdoing. This inconsistency reflects a bigotry of low expectations regarding non-Western countries camouflaged by a vicious, self-righteous storm of fury whenever America, England, or Israel stumbles.
Zionophobia festers in the fetid springs of modern Arab nationalism and Islamism, culminating a systematic decades-long campaign that has metastasized from rejecting Zionism to demonizing Jews. This fanatic wave of hatred combines traditionally anti-Semitic, Nazi and Soviet tropes with Islamic fundamentalism, the cult of state dictatorships, and Arab pride.
Surprisingly, this anti-modern, anti-democratic, deeply illiberal ideology has influenced academics, intellectuals, NGO-activists, and United Nations bureaucrats who believe they champion modernity, universalism and human rights. Massive doses of identity politics and political correctness calm the cognitive dissonance that should result from this unholy alliance.
Zionophobia explains how an anti-racism conference in Durban in 2001 became an anti-Israel pile-on, and why the UN is planning a repeat in 2009. Thanks to Zionophobia, suicide bombings against Israelis, Kassam rockets raining on Sderot's citizens, and many pro-Palestinian forces' worldwide campaign of hate against Jews not just Israel are rationalized as part of the morally neutral "cycle of violence." Zionophobia exploits modern political divisions, fooling too many liberals into thinking that supporting Israel or opposing Islamist terrorism is somehow illiberal, when Zionism remains shaped by progressivism and Islamist fundamentalism is anathema to liberalism.
Zionophobes -- who today are occasionally Jewish or Israeli -- suffer from five major manifestations of disease:
Myopia: the one-sided, biased view of Israel, exaggerating Israel's imperfections into crimes against humanity while ignoring more serious abuses elsewhere. How else can we explain the libel that Israel is practicing South-African style apartheid or the lopsided number of UN resolutions against Israel?
Dyspepsia: the constant tension attending even benign recognitions of the Jewish state. How else can we explain the furor surrounding the Turin International Book Fair's decision to honor Israel this year?
Obsessive-compulsive disorder: the exaggerated worldview blaming Israel for so much of the world's woes. How else can we explain the worldwide surveys identifying Israel as a greater threat to world peace than Iran with its nuclear ambitions and genocidal threats against a fellow UN member?
Schizophrenia: the split personality among progressives who caricature Israel as a military dictatorship while ignoring the sins of Israel's undemocratic neighbors. How else can we explain the free pass so many liberals give to Arab sexism, homophobia, suppression of dissent, and political strong-arming?
Paranoia: the false claim that the anti-Zionists are victims, demonized, marginalized, delegitimized on campus, in the media. How else can we explain the best-sellers darkly warning about "the Jewish Lobby," and the "Ad Hoc Committee to Defend the University" consisting of over 600 leading scholars only singling out "groups portraying themselves as defenders of Israel" as today's threats to academic freedom?
We cannot lose our sense of outrage. Annual conferences and myriad self-defense organizations risk making us too used to battle, inured to just how disgraceful the situation has become.
We also cannot lose our sense of proportion. It is too easy to mimic our enemies' ailments by becoming the world's hypochondriacs and hysterics, always feeling beleaguered, always fighting the latest scourge in full fury, no matter how insignificant.
The best response to all this ugliness is to foster as much beauty as possible in the modern Jewish state. Better to spend more time building an enlightened, just, democratic, fair, prosperous and fun country than fighting calumnies. This month, Israel Musicals produced "The Man of La Mancha" in English in Israel, for the first time. Don Quixote fights vulgarity with nobility, hatred with love. His "Impossible Dream" amuses the cynics but sweeps up his beloved Dulcinea and his loyal friend Sancho Panza.
The Zionist dream remains compelling yet somewhat impossible, entrancing a committed minority to envision the good in a world with too much evil. Tilting at windmills is futile.
Carefully choosing our battles, applying the right mix of indignation and imagination, realism and idealism, anger and insight, we will learn "to right, the unrightable wrong, to love, pure and chaste from afar." Then maybe, someday soon, we will reach that "unreachable star," not to disarm the anti-Semites but to live in peace, freedom and dignity, "ba'eretz Tzion, Yerushalayim," in the land of Zion, Jerusalem.
Views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
© 2001-2004 Koret Communications Ltd. All rights reserved.
Diagnosing Zionophobia and curing it
By Gil Troy
February 24, 2008
In 1882, a Russian Jewish physician named Leon Pinsker diagnosed "Judeophobia," the irrational Jew-hatred, blighting enlightened Europeans. On February 24th and 25th, 126 years later, delegates from 45 countries will convene in Jerusalem to attend the International Conference for the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism, organized by the Israeli Foreign Ministry's Department of Combating Antisemitism headed by Aviva Raz-Shechter. The Forum's venue proves that Jews' statelessness, which Dr. Pinsker blamed for causing anti-Semitism, has ended. Tragically, an irrational hatred of that Jewish state has morphed this ancient disease into a new affliction: Zionophobia.
Zionophobia is the irrational hatred of Israel and Jewish nationalism, meaning Zionism. Rooted in traditional Judeophobia - and in genuine sympathy for the Palestinian predicament -- it masks this antisemitism by demonizing Israel in the guise of defending the downtrodden. By treating Israel as the world's only pariah state it assails the essence of Zionism, which demanded equal treatment for the Jewish nation.
Zionophobia singles out the Jews, holding Israel to an artificially high standard, while ignoring Israel's unique blend of liberal, democratic, and Jewish values. Only Israel remains on probation 60 years after its founding, with its legitimacy seemingly contingent on good behavior. No one questions the legitimacy of, say, Pakistan, despite being artificially carved out of the British Raj - and rarely a constructive force in the world. This double standard marks Zionophobia as a strain of a broader disease, the modern tendency to judge all Western nations harshly, but especially the United States and its allies, while absolving Third World nations of wrongdoing. This inconsistency reflects a bigotry of low expectations regarding non-Western countries camouflaged by a vicious, self-righteous storm of fury whenever America, England, or Israel stumbles.
Zionophobia festers in the fetid springs of modern Arab nationalism and Islamism, culminating a systematic decades-long campaign that has metastasized from rejecting Zionism to demonizing Jews. This fanatic wave of hatred combines traditionally anti-Semitic, Nazi and Soviet tropes with Islamic fundamentalism, the cult of state dictatorships, and Arab pride.
Surprisingly, this anti-modern, anti-democratic, deeply illiberal ideology has influenced academics, intellectuals, NGO-activists, and United Nations bureaucrats who believe they champion modernity, universalism and human rights. Massive doses of identity politics and political correctness calm the cognitive dissonance that should result from this unholy alliance.
Zionophobia explains how an anti-racism conference in Durban in 2001 became an anti-Israel pile-on, and why the UN is planning a repeat in 2009. Thanks to Zionophobia, suicide bombings against Israelis, Kassam rockets raining on Sderot's citizens, and many pro-Palestinian forces' worldwide campaign of hate against Jews not just Israel are rationalized as part of the morally neutral "cycle of violence." Zionophobia exploits modern political divisions, fooling too many liberals into thinking that supporting Israel or opposing Islamist terrorism is somehow illiberal, when Zionism remains shaped by progressivism and Islamist fundamentalism is anathema to liberalism.
Zionophobes -- who today are occasionally Jewish or Israeli -- suffer from five major manifestations of disease:
Myopia: the one-sided, biased view of Israel, exaggerating Israel's imperfections into crimes against humanity while ignoring more serious abuses elsewhere. How else can we explain the libel that Israel is practicing South-African style apartheid or the lopsided number of UN resolutions against Israel?
Dyspepsia: the constant tension attending even benign recognitions of the Jewish state. How else can we explain the furor surrounding the Turin International Book Fair's decision to honor Israel this year?
Obsessive-compulsive disorder: the exaggerated worldview blaming Israel for so much of the world's woes. How else can we explain the worldwide surveys identifying Israel as a greater threat to world peace than Iran with its nuclear ambitions and genocidal threats against a fellow UN member?
Schizophrenia: the split personality among progressives who caricature Israel as a military dictatorship while ignoring the sins of Israel's undemocratic neighbors. How else can we explain the free pass so many liberals give to Arab sexism, homophobia, suppression of dissent, and political strong-arming?
Paranoia: the false claim that the anti-Zionists are victims, demonized, marginalized, delegitimized on campus, in the media. How else can we explain the best-sellers darkly warning about "the Jewish Lobby," and the "Ad Hoc Committee to Defend the University" consisting of over 600 leading scholars only singling out "groups portraying themselves as defenders of Israel" as today's threats to academic freedom?
We cannot lose our sense of outrage. Annual conferences and myriad self-defense organizations risk making us too used to battle, inured to just how disgraceful the situation has become.
We also cannot lose our sense of proportion. It is too easy to mimic our enemies' ailments by becoming the world's hypochondriacs and hysterics, always feeling beleaguered, always fighting the latest scourge in full fury, no matter how insignificant.
The best response to all this ugliness is to foster as much beauty as possible in the modern Jewish state. Better to spend more time building an enlightened, just, democratic, fair, prosperous and fun country than fighting calumnies. This month, Israel Musicals produced "The Man of La Mancha" in English in Israel, for the first time. Don Quixote fights vulgarity with nobility, hatred with love. His "Impossible Dream" amuses the cynics but sweeps up his beloved Dulcinea and his loyal friend Sancho Panza.
The Zionist dream remains compelling yet somewhat impossible, entrancing a committed minority to envision the good in a world with too much evil. Tilting at windmills is futile.
Carefully choosing our battles, applying the right mix of indignation and imagination, realism and idealism, anger and insight, we will learn "to right, the unrightable wrong, to love, pure and chaste from afar." Then maybe, someday soon, we will reach that "unreachable star," not to disarm the anti-Semites but to live in peace, freedom and dignity, "ba'eretz Tzion, Yerushalayim," in the land of Zion, Jerusalem.
Views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
© 2001-2004 Koret Communications Ltd. All rights reserved.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)