Israel it seems can do no right at present. Britain’s expulsion of an Israeli diplomat after fake passports, stolen identities and a terrorist’s assassination, plus Jerusalem’s ‘settlements’ are keeping our media in a frenzy and the West in terror of the Islamists.What about Britain’s “settlements” in The Falklands? The
Argentinians can lay more claim to 'The Malvinas' than the British.
Britain is to blame for all the ME’s and Israel’s problems (see also The Age,27/3) , as she is to blame for those in Iraq, a country it cooked up while keeping Sunni Arabs, Shi’ite Arabs and Kurds at each others’ throats. The US is to blame for the Talibans’ ascendancy against the Russians in Afghanistan. Now, does Obama hope for regional alliances with Iran as his exit strategy from the Iraq and Afghanistan quagmire?
The only pitiful aspect of the whole fake passport affair is the fact that a number of innocent Israelis’ names are,- intentionally or mistakenly,- now on Interpol’s watch list!
As Michael Crowley puts it (The Australian,29/3,), “Obama ,- seems less interested in the political composition of Afghanistan than in reducing violence to a level that will allow for a US (and Australian) withdrawal.” So he is ready to appease the devil for it!
We must hope that Israel, the only independent bulwark against the Islamists’ jihadists, will not allow herself to be the West’s sacrificial lamb on the altar of Obama’s Islamic sympathies and Iran’s nuclear ambitions or we in the West are all lost, including some of Israel’s more moderate Arab neighbours .
If anyone thinks that by Jerusalem becoming the Berlin of old it will appease the Iranian Islamists, forget it,- there is no appeasement of a hungry beast. Chamberlain tried it! Sensible humans after all, could talk,- if only they would want to.
MM.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Obama's Legacy and the Iranian Bomb. (Dershowitz)
[N.B Alan M. Dershowitz: "Obama's Legacy and the Iranian Bomb" -- Warning That Obama Is Becoming the Next Chamberlain
Mr. Dershowitz is a law professor at Harvard. His latest book is "The Case for Moral Clarity" (Camera, 2009).
Dershowitz is a liberal and a Democrat and strongly supported Obama during his campaign. Therefore Dershowitz's warning that Obama is becoming the Chamberlain of today deserves special attention. It is significant, however, that Dershowitz was evidently unable to publish his article in a liberal publication, e.g. The New York Times, and had to resort to the conservative Wall Street Journal.]
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704869304575110042827617582.html?mod=rss_Today
MARCH 23, 2010
Obama's Legacy and the Iranian Bomb
Neville Chamberlain was remembered for appeasing Germany, not his progressive social programs.
By ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ
The gravest threat faced by the world today is a nuclear-armed Iran. Of all the nations capable of producing nuclear weapons, Iran is the only one that might use them to attack an enemy.
There are several ways in which Iran could use nuclear weapons. The first is by dropping an atomic bomb on Israel, as its leaders have repeatedly threatened to do. Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president of Iran, boasted in 2004 that an Iranian attack would kill as many as five million Jews. Mr. Rafsanjani estimated that even if Israel retaliated with its own nuclear bombs, Iran would probably lose about 15 million people, which he said would be a small "sacrifice" of the billion Muslims in the world.
The second way in which Iran could use nuclear weapons would be to hand them off to its surrogates, Hezbollah or Hamas. A third way would be for a terrorist group, such as al Qaeda, to get its hands on Iranian nuclear material. It could do so with the consent of Iran or by working with rogue elements within the Iranian regime.
Finally, Iran could use its nuclear weapons without ever detonating a bomb. By constantly threatening Israel with nuclear annihilation, it could engender so much fear among Israelis as to incite mass immigration, a brain drain, or a significant decline in people moving to Israel.
These are the specific ways in which Iran could use nuclear weapons, primarily against the Jewish state. But there are other ways in which a nuclear-armed Iran would endanger the world. First, it would cause an arms race in which every nation in the Middle East would seek to obtain nuclear weapons.
Second, it would almost certainly provoke Israel into engaging in either a pre-emptive or retaliatory attack, thus inflaming the entire region or inciting further attacks against Israel by Hezbollah and Hamas.
Third, it would provide Iran with a nuclear umbrella under which it could accelerate its efforts at regional hegemony. Had Iraq operated under a nuclear umbrella when it invaded Kuwait in 1990, Saddam Hussein's forces would still be in Kuwait.
Fourth, it would embolden the most radical elements in the Middle East to continue their war of words and deeds against the United States and its allies.
And finally, it would inevitably unleash the law of unintended consequences: Simply put, nobody knows the extent of the harm a nuclear-armed Iran could produce.
In these respects, allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons is somewhat analogous to the decision by the victors of World War I to allow Nazi Germany to rearm during the 1930s. Even the Nazis were surprised at this complacency. Joseph Goebbels expected the French and British to prevent the Nazis from rebuilding Germany's war machine.
In 1940, Goebbels told a group of German journalists that if he had been the French premier when Hitler came to power he would have said, "The new Reich Chancellor is the man who wrote Mein Kampf, which says this and that. This man cannot be tolerated in our vicinity. Either he disappears or we march!"
But, Goebbels continued, "they didn't do it. They left us alone and let us slip through the risky zone, and we were able to sail around all dangerous reefs. And when we were done, and well armed, better than they, then they started the war!"
Most people today are not aware that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain helped restore Great Britain's financial stability during the Great Depression and also passed legislation to extend unemployment benefits, pay pensions to retired workers and otherwise help those hit hard by the slumping economy. But history does remember his failure to confront Hitler. That is Chamberlain's enduring legacy.
So too will Iran's construction of nuclear weapons, if it manages to do so in the next few years, become President Barack Obama's enduring legacy. Regardless of his passage of health-care reform and regardless of whether he restores jobs and helps the economy recover, Mr. Obama will be remembered for allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. History will not treat kindly any leader who allows so much power to be accumulated by the world's first suicide nation—a nation whose leaders have not only expressed but, during the Iran-Iraq war, demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice millions of their own people to an apocalyptic mission of destruction.
If Iran were to become a nuclear power, there would be plenty of blame to go around. A National Intelligence Report, issued on President George W. Bush's watch, distorted the truth by suggestion that Iran had ended its quest for nuclear weapons. It also withheld the fact that U.S. intelligence had discovered a nuclear facility near Qum, Iran, that could be used only for the production of nuclear weapons. Chamberlain, too, was not entirely to blame for Hitler's initial triumphs. He became prime minister after his predecessors allowed Germany to rearm. Nevertheless, it is Chamberlain who has come to symbolize the failure to prevent Hitler's ascendancy. So too will Mr. Obama come to symbolize the failure of the West if Iran acquires nuclear weapons on his watch.
Mr. Dershowitz is a law professor at Harvard. His latest book is "The Case for Moral Clarity" (Camera, 2009).
Dershowitz is a liberal and a Democrat and strongly supported Obama during his campaign. Therefore Dershowitz's warning that Obama is becoming the Chamberlain of today deserves special attention. It is significant, however, that Dershowitz was evidently unable to publish his article in a liberal publication, e.g. The New York Times, and had to resort to the conservative Wall Street Journal.]
-------------------------------------------------------------------
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704869304575110042827617582.html?mod=rss_Today
MARCH 23, 2010
Obama's Legacy and the Iranian Bomb
Neville Chamberlain was remembered for appeasing Germany, not his progressive social programs.
By ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ
The gravest threat faced by the world today is a nuclear-armed Iran. Of all the nations capable of producing nuclear weapons, Iran is the only one that might use them to attack an enemy.
There are several ways in which Iran could use nuclear weapons. The first is by dropping an atomic bomb on Israel, as its leaders have repeatedly threatened to do. Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president of Iran, boasted in 2004 that an Iranian attack would kill as many as five million Jews. Mr. Rafsanjani estimated that even if Israel retaliated with its own nuclear bombs, Iran would probably lose about 15 million people, which he said would be a small "sacrifice" of the billion Muslims in the world.
The second way in which Iran could use nuclear weapons would be to hand them off to its surrogates, Hezbollah or Hamas. A third way would be for a terrorist group, such as al Qaeda, to get its hands on Iranian nuclear material. It could do so with the consent of Iran or by working with rogue elements within the Iranian regime.
Finally, Iran could use its nuclear weapons without ever detonating a bomb. By constantly threatening Israel with nuclear annihilation, it could engender so much fear among Israelis as to incite mass immigration, a brain drain, or a significant decline in people moving to Israel.
These are the specific ways in which Iran could use nuclear weapons, primarily against the Jewish state. But there are other ways in which a nuclear-armed Iran would endanger the world. First, it would cause an arms race in which every nation in the Middle East would seek to obtain nuclear weapons.
Second, it would almost certainly provoke Israel into engaging in either a pre-emptive or retaliatory attack, thus inflaming the entire region or inciting further attacks against Israel by Hezbollah and Hamas.
Third, it would provide Iran with a nuclear umbrella under which it could accelerate its efforts at regional hegemony. Had Iraq operated under a nuclear umbrella when it invaded Kuwait in 1990, Saddam Hussein's forces would still be in Kuwait.
Fourth, it would embolden the most radical elements in the Middle East to continue their war of words and deeds against the United States and its allies.
And finally, it would inevitably unleash the law of unintended consequences: Simply put, nobody knows the extent of the harm a nuclear-armed Iran could produce.
In these respects, allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons is somewhat analogous to the decision by the victors of World War I to allow Nazi Germany to rearm during the 1930s. Even the Nazis were surprised at this complacency. Joseph Goebbels expected the French and British to prevent the Nazis from rebuilding Germany's war machine.
In 1940, Goebbels told a group of German journalists that if he had been the French premier when Hitler came to power he would have said, "The new Reich Chancellor is the man who wrote Mein Kampf, which says this and that. This man cannot be tolerated in our vicinity. Either he disappears or we march!"
But, Goebbels continued, "they didn't do it. They left us alone and let us slip through the risky zone, and we were able to sail around all dangerous reefs. And when we were done, and well armed, better than they, then they started the war!"
Most people today are not aware that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain helped restore Great Britain's financial stability during the Great Depression and also passed legislation to extend unemployment benefits, pay pensions to retired workers and otherwise help those hit hard by the slumping economy. But history does remember his failure to confront Hitler. That is Chamberlain's enduring legacy.
So too will Iran's construction of nuclear weapons, if it manages to do so in the next few years, become President Barack Obama's enduring legacy. Regardless of his passage of health-care reform and regardless of whether he restores jobs and helps the economy recover, Mr. Obama will be remembered for allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. History will not treat kindly any leader who allows so much power to be accumulated by the world's first suicide nation—a nation whose leaders have not only expressed but, during the Iran-Iraq war, demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice millions of their own people to an apocalyptic mission of destruction.
If Iran were to become a nuclear power, there would be plenty of blame to go around. A National Intelligence Report, issued on President George W. Bush's watch, distorted the truth by suggestion that Iran had ended its quest for nuclear weapons. It also withheld the fact that U.S. intelligence had discovered a nuclear facility near Qum, Iran, that could be used only for the production of nuclear weapons. Chamberlain, too, was not entirely to blame for Hitler's initial triumphs. He became prime minister after his predecessors allowed Germany to rearm. Nevertheless, it is Chamberlain who has come to symbolize the failure to prevent Hitler's ascendancy. So too will Mr. Obama come to symbolize the failure of the West if Iran acquires nuclear weapons on his watch.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Prof. Alan Dershowitz at AIPAC, March 2010.
You must always believe the threats of your enemies more than the promises of your friends.
Professor Alan Dershowitz, Speech at the recent AIPAC.
•
Thank you. Thank you. Wow, what a wonderful conference. What a great show of support for Israel at a critical time. (Applause.)
The world should today be standing in awe and appreciation of Israel's amazing accomplishments and contributions. No country has ever contributed so much to the world in a mere 61 years. Israel's — (applause) — Israel's medical technology exports have saved more lives per capita than exports from any other country. Israel has saved more Muslim and Arab lives than all of the Arab and Muslim countries combined. (Applause.)
Israel's high technology accomplishments exceed those of all of Europe and most of Asia. Israel has accomplished more for the environment than virtually any country in the world. Israel has taught the world how to fight wars against terrorism ethically and with concern for avoiding civilian casualties. (Applause.)
Israel — no country in the world faced with comparable threats has a better record of human rights than Israel does. And if you don't believe it, listen as you will to Richard Kemp when he describes how Israel compares to the other armies of the world facing threats from terrorists who hide among civilians.
When Justice Brennan, probably the most liberal justice to serve on the Supreme Court went to Israel he said, "If terrorism ever comes to the United States there is only one country from which the United States can learn how to balance human rights against the need to fight terrorism, and that country was Israel." Israel should be so proud and appreciative of Israel, but instead — (applause) — but instead, Israel is the only country in the world today whose legitimacy continues to be questioned, constantly questioned; constantly challenged.
It's more than ironic since no country has ever been established on a firmer foundation of law. Israel was established, after all through declarations accepted by the League of Nations, by the United Nations, by international law, yet its legitimacy remains challenged. Compare it to other countries that started with the revolutions or simply grabbing a land of other people, Israel paid for every inch of its land, paid for it by money and paid for it by the blood of its children.(Applause.)
This process of delegitimation began in earnest in 1975 when the United Nations took so much time and so much energy debating whether Zionism was racism. And do you know what else was happening in 1975 at the time the United Nations was involved in this ridiculous, bigoted debate? A million people were being murdered by genocides in Cambodia and the United Nations paid no attention to that at all. They were too busy to delegitimate and condemn Israel. And then it moved from 1975 to the Durban Conference in 2001 where the Durban strategy of delegitimation took root. What they did is they turned everything around. They accused Israel of racism, Israel of apartheid, Israel of genocide, Israel of creating a holocaust.
What it did is they inverted the entire concept of human rights and turned it against Israel. There were efforts of the result of Durban to boycott Israeli institutions, institutions of learning, institutions that are trying to cure cancer and heart disease and Parkinson's and yet efforts are made, to this day, in Nor—- Norway as we speak, in England as we speak to boycott Israeli academic institutions. You know what happened last time when they tried to boycott Israel and England? A few of us got together and put together a petition saying, "You know, if you boycott Israel, your universities, we will not speak at your universities." And we circulated a petition. We thought we'd get 400 or 500 signatures, 11,000 American academics, Nobel Prize winners, presidents of universities — (applause) — signed onto that petition.
And the message was clear, "If you try to boycott Israel it is you who will be boycotted and it is your universities that will suffer." Israel's universities are among the greatest in the world today and nobody should try to boycott its great academics and its great places of science. And then came the concept that we call "guerilla lawfare," efforts to try to delegitimate Israel by using legal tactics, legal means, using international law, using the law of humanitarian aspects, using all of it to try to turn it against Israel, divestment campaigns, distortion of human rights. When it came to Durban II, the attempt to redo it again last year we were ready and we went to Geneva and we fought back. And we won Durban II. They invited Ahmadinejad. We invited Elie Wiesel.
We said, "Who is the person who speaks for human rights here today?" (applause) One of the proudest moments — one of the proudest moments of my life was when I was arrested by the Swiss police for daring to try to confront Ahmadinejad and just ask him a simple question, "Do you deny the Holocaust? Have you ever been to Auschwitz? Which books have you read about the Holocaust?" Challenging him to debate his Holocaust denial. He denies the Holocaust while trying to bring another one upon the Jewish people of Israel and yet I was arrested for trying to confront him in a peaceful way. But at Durban the students stood up against Ahmadinejad and he was booed and people walked out on him and we won the second Durban encounter. (Applause.)
And the important message is, "We fight back. We don't take these kinds of abuses sitting down." And when Richard Goldstone — (applause) — when Richard Goldstone, through his everlasting disgrace, agreed to serve on a commission that was so one-sided, we fought back, "One-sided?" Do you know who the three people serving on the commission were? One of them, a colonel from Ireland, who before he ever served on the commission believed that Israeli soldiers had taken out Irish soldiers and killed them in cold blood and he was going to get revenge. He believed Israel had no right of self-defense. He was serving on the commission. A British woman, who before she heard a piece of evidence said Israel was guilty of war crime. She was serving on the commission.
And a Muslim woman from Pakistan said, "You have to believe Palestinians, they always tell the truth." She was serving on the commission. And then, of course to give the commission the certification of Kashrut, the Heksher, they put Richard Goldstone on the commission to sign on as the token court Jew so that when people argued with the contents of the Goldstone Report or tried to debate him, as I tried to debate him his answer was, "No. I'm a Jew. My daughter lives in Israel. I must be correct. You can't question me, because I'm a Jew."
An argument ad hominem and at which had nothing to do with the demerits of the Goldstone Report, which got everything backwards. And we now have videotaped evidence showing everything that Goldstone said was wrong. Israel tried desperately to avoid civilian casualties while Hamas — (applause) — fired — while Hamas fired from behind civilian shields. The point is that delegitimation efforts, until now, have been limited primarily to the United Nations and European countries. It has never ever succeeded in the United States.
Why? Because in the United States, thanks to AIPAC and thanks to the fact that we have tremendous support among Congress people and among the people of the United States Israel is known to be America's great friend and Israel gets high ratings every time their public opinion polls and that's why every effort to delegitimate in the United States up to now has failed. But I want to tell you about a new effort that's just beginning and that has the potential to succeed if we don't fight back. The newest threat, the newest attempt to import delegitimation into the United States comes from people, like Walton Mearsheimer who wrote a book which gets it all backwards.
Walton Mearsheimer, obviously says a lot of good things in some ways about AIPAC. He thinks you're the most powerful organization in the world, you control what the United States does. What he fails to understand is that the reason AIPAC is strong and may you go from strength to strength and increase your strength is because Americans support Israel and because Americans support Israel, Congresspeople support Israel.
There is a lobby in Washington that has no public support, which is very powerful that Walton Mearsheimer could've written about. It's called the Saudi lobby — no public support, great influence and power. That's a paradox. It's not paradox to the democracy that a law before a group that's completely popular and supported by the American public should have some influence in Washington. And then comes Jimmy Carter in an attempt to delegitimate Israel by using that word, apartheid. Jimmy Carter, a man who wouldn't use the word genocide what was going on in Darfur, because he says, "You have to be careful about how you use language," uses the word apartheid to describe Israel's only democracy.
But now the most recent argument and the most serious argument ever made against Israel in modern times is one that's recently been all over the Internet, namely that Israeli actions endanger American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's all over the Internet and it's creeping into the mainstream media. Headlines, "Israel, a danger to U.S. troops." CNN, Rick Sanchez, "This is starting to get dangerous for us, Biden purportedly told Netanyahu, 'What you're doing here undermines the security of our troops,' [inaudible].
United States tells Israel, "You are undermining America, endangering troops." "Israel is empowering Al-Qaeda, Petraeus warns." "Petraeus, Israel's intransigents could cost American lives." Variations of this false and dangerous argument have now been picked up by Joe Klein in Time Magazine, Roger Cowen in the New York Times, Walton Mearsheimer, Brzezinski and others. Both Vice President Biden and General Petraeus have apparently disavowed this argument, though their statements continued to be sited in support of its conclusion.
Whatever the source the argument has taken on, unfortunately a life of its own and is being used in an effort to bring the delegitimacy campaign to the United States of America. It is the most dangerous argument ever put forward in the ongoing campaign against Israel, because its goal is directly to reduce support for Israel among mainstream Americans, who like every one of us in this room support our American troops fighting abroad. (Applause.)
It is an ironic and insidious argument, primarily because the pillar of Israel's policy with regard to the United States troops is that Israel never wants to endanger our troops. That's why it never asks the United States soldiers to fight for Israel as many of allies, in fact, do by seeking the scapegoat Israel for the deaths of American troops at the hands of Islamic terrorists. This argument has become a powerful weapon in the campaign to demonize and delegitimate Israel in the minds of mainstream Americans. Most of all, it is an entirely false argument factually, entirely false. There is absolutely no relationship between Israel's actions and the safety of American troops, none. Consider the year 2000-2001, what was Israel doing in 2000-2001 in — in November, December, January?
They were offering peace to the Palestinians at Camp David and Taba. They were offering the Palestinians a state on 100 percent of the Gaza, 97 percent of the West Bank, a divided Jerusalem, $35 billion reparation package. What was going on during those months? Osama Bin Laden was planning the destruction of the World Trade Center.
No relationship between Israeli actions and hatred and actions by Islamic extremists against the United States. In 2005, Israel leaves Gaza, leaves Gaza — unilaterally leaves Gaza. That's exactly what everybody has been asking for and at the same time there was a slight increase against American troops in Iraq. During Operation Cast Lead and the Jerusalem building recent announcement there's been no significant escalation of violence against American troops in Iraq. There is no relationship. It's made up out of whole cloth. I challenge those who are offering this argument, put up or shut up. Prove your point or stop making these bigoted arguments. (Applause.) They are wrong. And think — think of the implications — think of the implications of this argument. The implications of this argument are the delegitimization of Israel in the minds of Americans. Why? Because for Muslim extremists it's not what America does. It's not what Israel does. It's what Israel is. It's what America is.
Islamic extremists cannot accept the concept of a secular democracy, a democracy that grants equal rights to women, equal rights to all. It's what they are that they hate, not what we do. That's why it's an important part of the delegitimization campaign, Israel cannot do anything that would satisfy the Islamic extremists to threaten the United States troops. There's nothing Israel could do. If Israel made peace tomorrow unilaterally giving up all of its rights it would have no impact whatsoever. As long as Israel exists that is the grievance of Islamic extremists and Israel is not going to stop existing to satisfy Islamic extremists. (Applause.)
Nor can the United States — nor can the United States do anything to stop Islamic extremists from threatening Americans unless it were to pull out all of its troops in the Middle East, which it's not going to do. The point is there's nothing that Israel or the United States can do to stop these Islamic extremists. There is something, however, the Palestinian authority can do, by stopping the daily incitements against the United States from extremists. Just go on Memory.org. Just watch it on a daily basis on PA television, that's the incitement that puts American troops in danger, by stopping teaching its children to hate us, by stopping the naming of public squares in the West Bank after murderers of Americans and the murderers of Israeli children and civilians.
This square is being named after a murderer who killed an American woman and who killed many Israelis. When you do that and you say that you're naming the square in order to encourage your children to follow in the path of that murderer you're inciting violence against American troops and against American citizens. So let us focus on those who hate America and those who incite terrorism against our troops rather than on a brave nation that loves America, that helps it militarily and with intelligence and that never asks the United States for troops to protect it. I want to mention just two propositions that I ask anybody who makes the case against Israel to dispute, two simple propositions.
Number one, if Israel's enemies were to lay down their arms, stop terrorism and stop firing rockets there would be peace. Does anybody dispute that? Number two, if Israel were to lay down its arms there would be genocide. That is the reality. That's the truth and those two statements must be kept in mind.
And then I want to talk just very briefly about three lessons of the Holocaust that I know I've learned in my friendship with Elie Wiesel. The first lesson is that morality without military power is not enough. We had morality on our side during the Second World War, but we didn't have the ability to defend the Jewish community. Thank God for Israel. Thank God for its military. Thank God for the ability that we now have to defend our morality.(applause)The second lesson — the second lesson is that military power without morality is dangerous. That's why the Israeli military learns lessons and ethics. That's why it has the concept of holiness of arms. That's why it has professors helping to shape ethical policies for the military. And the third one, and perhaps the most important one that Israel and all of us must keep in mind when dealing with Iran is that you must always believe the threats of your enemies more than the promises of your friends. (Applause.)
And that's why Israel must be totally self-reliant. And so — and so in closing, I want to thank you for showing support for this great embattled nation. I want to tell you that the United States- Israel alliance is good for America for Israel, it's good for democracy and it's good for humanity.
Professor Alan Dershowitz, Speech at the recent AIPAC.
•
Thank you. Thank you. Wow, what a wonderful conference. What a great show of support for Israel at a critical time. (Applause.)
The world should today be standing in awe and appreciation of Israel's amazing accomplishments and contributions. No country has ever contributed so much to the world in a mere 61 years. Israel's — (applause) — Israel's medical technology exports have saved more lives per capita than exports from any other country. Israel has saved more Muslim and Arab lives than all of the Arab and Muslim countries combined. (Applause.)
Israel's high technology accomplishments exceed those of all of Europe and most of Asia. Israel has accomplished more for the environment than virtually any country in the world. Israel has taught the world how to fight wars against terrorism ethically and with concern for avoiding civilian casualties. (Applause.)
Israel — no country in the world faced with comparable threats has a better record of human rights than Israel does. And if you don't believe it, listen as you will to Richard Kemp when he describes how Israel compares to the other armies of the world facing threats from terrorists who hide among civilians.
When Justice Brennan, probably the most liberal justice to serve on the Supreme Court went to Israel he said, "If terrorism ever comes to the United States there is only one country from which the United States can learn how to balance human rights against the need to fight terrorism, and that country was Israel." Israel should be so proud and appreciative of Israel, but instead — (applause) — but instead, Israel is the only country in the world today whose legitimacy continues to be questioned, constantly questioned; constantly challenged.
It's more than ironic since no country has ever been established on a firmer foundation of law. Israel was established, after all through declarations accepted by the League of Nations, by the United Nations, by international law, yet its legitimacy remains challenged. Compare it to other countries that started with the revolutions or simply grabbing a land of other people, Israel paid for every inch of its land, paid for it by money and paid for it by the blood of its children.(Applause.)
This process of delegitimation began in earnest in 1975 when the United Nations took so much time and so much energy debating whether Zionism was racism. And do you know what else was happening in 1975 at the time the United Nations was involved in this ridiculous, bigoted debate? A million people were being murdered by genocides in Cambodia and the United Nations paid no attention to that at all. They were too busy to delegitimate and condemn Israel. And then it moved from 1975 to the Durban Conference in 2001 where the Durban strategy of delegitimation took root. What they did is they turned everything around. They accused Israel of racism, Israel of apartheid, Israel of genocide, Israel of creating a holocaust.
What it did is they inverted the entire concept of human rights and turned it against Israel. There were efforts of the result of Durban to boycott Israeli institutions, institutions of learning, institutions that are trying to cure cancer and heart disease and Parkinson's and yet efforts are made, to this day, in Nor—- Norway as we speak, in England as we speak to boycott Israeli academic institutions. You know what happened last time when they tried to boycott Israel and England? A few of us got together and put together a petition saying, "You know, if you boycott Israel, your universities, we will not speak at your universities." And we circulated a petition. We thought we'd get 400 or 500 signatures, 11,000 American academics, Nobel Prize winners, presidents of universities — (applause) — signed onto that petition.
And the message was clear, "If you try to boycott Israel it is you who will be boycotted and it is your universities that will suffer." Israel's universities are among the greatest in the world today and nobody should try to boycott its great academics and its great places of science. And then came the concept that we call "guerilla lawfare," efforts to try to delegitimate Israel by using legal tactics, legal means, using international law, using the law of humanitarian aspects, using all of it to try to turn it against Israel, divestment campaigns, distortion of human rights. When it came to Durban II, the attempt to redo it again last year we were ready and we went to Geneva and we fought back. And we won Durban II. They invited Ahmadinejad. We invited Elie Wiesel.
We said, "Who is the person who speaks for human rights here today?" (applause) One of the proudest moments — one of the proudest moments of my life was when I was arrested by the Swiss police for daring to try to confront Ahmadinejad and just ask him a simple question, "Do you deny the Holocaust? Have you ever been to Auschwitz? Which books have you read about the Holocaust?" Challenging him to debate his Holocaust denial. He denies the Holocaust while trying to bring another one upon the Jewish people of Israel and yet I was arrested for trying to confront him in a peaceful way. But at Durban the students stood up against Ahmadinejad and he was booed and people walked out on him and we won the second Durban encounter. (Applause.)
And the important message is, "We fight back. We don't take these kinds of abuses sitting down." And when Richard Goldstone — (applause) — when Richard Goldstone, through his everlasting disgrace, agreed to serve on a commission that was so one-sided, we fought back, "One-sided?" Do you know who the three people serving on the commission were? One of them, a colonel from Ireland, who before he ever served on the commission believed that Israeli soldiers had taken out Irish soldiers and killed them in cold blood and he was going to get revenge. He believed Israel had no right of self-defense. He was serving on the commission. A British woman, who before she heard a piece of evidence said Israel was guilty of war crime. She was serving on the commission.
And a Muslim woman from Pakistan said, "You have to believe Palestinians, they always tell the truth." She was serving on the commission. And then, of course to give the commission the certification of Kashrut, the Heksher, they put Richard Goldstone on the commission to sign on as the token court Jew so that when people argued with the contents of the Goldstone Report or tried to debate him, as I tried to debate him his answer was, "No. I'm a Jew. My daughter lives in Israel. I must be correct. You can't question me, because I'm a Jew."
An argument ad hominem and at which had nothing to do with the demerits of the Goldstone Report, which got everything backwards. And we now have videotaped evidence showing everything that Goldstone said was wrong. Israel tried desperately to avoid civilian casualties while Hamas — (applause) — fired — while Hamas fired from behind civilian shields. The point is that delegitimation efforts, until now, have been limited primarily to the United Nations and European countries. It has never ever succeeded in the United States.
Why? Because in the United States, thanks to AIPAC and thanks to the fact that we have tremendous support among Congress people and among the people of the United States Israel is known to be America's great friend and Israel gets high ratings every time their public opinion polls and that's why every effort to delegitimate in the United States up to now has failed. But I want to tell you about a new effort that's just beginning and that has the potential to succeed if we don't fight back. The newest threat, the newest attempt to import delegitimation into the United States comes from people, like Walton Mearsheimer who wrote a book which gets it all backwards.
Walton Mearsheimer, obviously says a lot of good things in some ways about AIPAC. He thinks you're the most powerful organization in the world, you control what the United States does. What he fails to understand is that the reason AIPAC is strong and may you go from strength to strength and increase your strength is because Americans support Israel and because Americans support Israel, Congresspeople support Israel.
There is a lobby in Washington that has no public support, which is very powerful that Walton Mearsheimer could've written about. It's called the Saudi lobby — no public support, great influence and power. That's a paradox. It's not paradox to the democracy that a law before a group that's completely popular and supported by the American public should have some influence in Washington. And then comes Jimmy Carter in an attempt to delegitimate Israel by using that word, apartheid. Jimmy Carter, a man who wouldn't use the word genocide what was going on in Darfur, because he says, "You have to be careful about how you use language," uses the word apartheid to describe Israel's only democracy.
But now the most recent argument and the most serious argument ever made against Israel in modern times is one that's recently been all over the Internet, namely that Israeli actions endanger American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's all over the Internet and it's creeping into the mainstream media. Headlines, "Israel, a danger to U.S. troops." CNN, Rick Sanchez, "This is starting to get dangerous for us, Biden purportedly told Netanyahu, 'What you're doing here undermines the security of our troops,' [inaudible].
United States tells Israel, "You are undermining America, endangering troops." "Israel is empowering Al-Qaeda, Petraeus warns." "Petraeus, Israel's intransigents could cost American lives." Variations of this false and dangerous argument have now been picked up by Joe Klein in Time Magazine, Roger Cowen in the New York Times, Walton Mearsheimer, Brzezinski and others. Both Vice President Biden and General Petraeus have apparently disavowed this argument, though their statements continued to be sited in support of its conclusion.
Whatever the source the argument has taken on, unfortunately a life of its own and is being used in an effort to bring the delegitimacy campaign to the United States of America. It is the most dangerous argument ever put forward in the ongoing campaign against Israel, because its goal is directly to reduce support for Israel among mainstream Americans, who like every one of us in this room support our American troops fighting abroad. (Applause.)
It is an ironic and insidious argument, primarily because the pillar of Israel's policy with regard to the United States troops is that Israel never wants to endanger our troops. That's why it never asks the United States soldiers to fight for Israel as many of allies, in fact, do by seeking the scapegoat Israel for the deaths of American troops at the hands of Islamic terrorists. This argument has become a powerful weapon in the campaign to demonize and delegitimate Israel in the minds of mainstream Americans. Most of all, it is an entirely false argument factually, entirely false. There is absolutely no relationship between Israel's actions and the safety of American troops, none. Consider the year 2000-2001, what was Israel doing in 2000-2001 in — in November, December, January?
They were offering peace to the Palestinians at Camp David and Taba. They were offering the Palestinians a state on 100 percent of the Gaza, 97 percent of the West Bank, a divided Jerusalem, $35 billion reparation package. What was going on during those months? Osama Bin Laden was planning the destruction of the World Trade Center.
No relationship between Israeli actions and hatred and actions by Islamic extremists against the United States. In 2005, Israel leaves Gaza, leaves Gaza — unilaterally leaves Gaza. That's exactly what everybody has been asking for and at the same time there was a slight increase against American troops in Iraq. During Operation Cast Lead and the Jerusalem building recent announcement there's been no significant escalation of violence against American troops in Iraq. There is no relationship. It's made up out of whole cloth. I challenge those who are offering this argument, put up or shut up. Prove your point or stop making these bigoted arguments. (Applause.) They are wrong. And think — think of the implications — think of the implications of this argument. The implications of this argument are the delegitimization of Israel in the minds of Americans. Why? Because for Muslim extremists it's not what America does. It's not what Israel does. It's what Israel is. It's what America is.
Islamic extremists cannot accept the concept of a secular democracy, a democracy that grants equal rights to women, equal rights to all. It's what they are that they hate, not what we do. That's why it's an important part of the delegitimization campaign, Israel cannot do anything that would satisfy the Islamic extremists to threaten the United States troops. There's nothing Israel could do. If Israel made peace tomorrow unilaterally giving up all of its rights it would have no impact whatsoever. As long as Israel exists that is the grievance of Islamic extremists and Israel is not going to stop existing to satisfy Islamic extremists. (Applause.)
Nor can the United States — nor can the United States do anything to stop Islamic extremists from threatening Americans unless it were to pull out all of its troops in the Middle East, which it's not going to do. The point is there's nothing that Israel or the United States can do to stop these Islamic extremists. There is something, however, the Palestinian authority can do, by stopping the daily incitements against the United States from extremists. Just go on Memory.org. Just watch it on a daily basis on PA television, that's the incitement that puts American troops in danger, by stopping teaching its children to hate us, by stopping the naming of public squares in the West Bank after murderers of Americans and the murderers of Israeli children and civilians.
This square is being named after a murderer who killed an American woman and who killed many Israelis. When you do that and you say that you're naming the square in order to encourage your children to follow in the path of that murderer you're inciting violence against American troops and against American citizens. So let us focus on those who hate America and those who incite terrorism against our troops rather than on a brave nation that loves America, that helps it militarily and with intelligence and that never asks the United States for troops to protect it. I want to mention just two propositions that I ask anybody who makes the case against Israel to dispute, two simple propositions.
Number one, if Israel's enemies were to lay down their arms, stop terrorism and stop firing rockets there would be peace. Does anybody dispute that? Number two, if Israel were to lay down its arms there would be genocide. That is the reality. That's the truth and those two statements must be kept in mind.
And then I want to talk just very briefly about three lessons of the Holocaust that I know I've learned in my friendship with Elie Wiesel. The first lesson is that morality without military power is not enough. We had morality on our side during the Second World War, but we didn't have the ability to defend the Jewish community. Thank God for Israel. Thank God for its military. Thank God for the ability that we now have to defend our morality.(applause)The second lesson — the second lesson is that military power without morality is dangerous. That's why the Israeli military learns lessons and ethics. That's why it has the concept of holiness of arms. That's why it has professors helping to shape ethical policies for the military. And the third one, and perhaps the most important one that Israel and all of us must keep in mind when dealing with Iran is that you must always believe the threats of your enemies more than the promises of your friends. (Applause.)
And that's why Israel must be totally self-reliant. And so — and so in closing, I want to thank you for showing support for this great embattled nation. I want to tell you that the United States- Israel alliance is good for America for Israel, it's good for democracy and it's good for humanity.
Monday, March 08, 2010
Some thoughts on Israel's 'Apartheid Week"
Israel’s neighbours from hell!
Imagine living, say,- in your ancestral beachside home with these kind of neighbours: terrorised by Hamasniks on the South side, Hitzbullah fanatics on the North side, PLO’s Fatah on the East side, the Khameini=Ahmadinejad ‘clan’ further down the road on one side, Bin Laden’s Al Queda on the other side and a whole lot of intimidated individuals in between.
What do you do? Run away into the sea, the only opening for you? Wait to be overrun and trampled to death?
Or build reinforcements and high walls around your ancestral home and “Compound” to try to protect your family and supporters within it, -living in the hope of eventual acceptance as a 'friendly neighbour'.
[Khamenei calls Israel " a perilous cancerous tumor inside the body of an Islamic community" (Guysen.International.News, 6/3/10)
Islamic Revolution leader Ayatollah Khamenei said " the fake, Zionist state of Israel was a perilous cancerous tumor inside the body of Islamic community."],
The only perilous cancerous tumour in our Western world today is the penetration of jihadist, fundamentalist, extremist Islamist groups into it.
Democratic Israel is the West’s front line of defence against them.
And if anyone wants to call Israel's fight for self-preservation ‘apartheid’, so be it I say!
Aren't we all entitled to that,- or should we allow ourselves to be overrun by those who want to destroy all our hard-won freedoms and democracies? Boundaries, borders, property and land ownership can be negotiated among sensible and friendly neighnours.
Not that Theocracy is the preserve only of Islam. Given half a chance, all religions have their fundamentlist groups, including those Israeli Haredim who would gladly impose their brand of religious dictatorship on all Jews. They have too much power as it is, due to a lack of religious pluralism in Israel,- i.e. there is a need for some religious competition for the minority ultra-Orthodox faith community of Israelis, when the majority of whom now consider themselves 'secularists', but have to be ruled by the strict adherence to Orthodox laws for all life-cycle events.
It's time to change the political-Orthodox stranglehold of the Israeli-Haredim minority in order to realize the true Zionist dream of all Jews, -diaspora Jewry as well as that of the majority of Israelis.
MM
(Comment)
Some thoughts on ‘Israel Apartheid Week’
By LARRY DERFNER
04/03/2010
I prefer "colonialism" to "apartheid" when describing Israel’s W. Bank rule.
‘As long as in this territory west of the Jordan River there is only one political entity called Israel, it is going to be either non-Jewish or non-democratic. If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, it will be an apartheid state.”
Those are the words of Ehud Barak, defense minister and former prime minister, at last month’s Herzliya Conference, the country’s highest-profile gathering of VIPs. Barak’s statement begs the question: Seeing that Palestinians in the West Bank haven’t been able to vote in Israeli elections since the occupation started in 1967, isn’t he saying Israel has been an apartheid state since then?
So, putting Barak’s statement in the context of this week’s news, should people really be so outraged that a few dozen colleges overseas are staging “Israel Apartheid Week”?
Myself, I prefer the term “colonialism” to “apartheid” when comparing Israel’s rule in the West Bank to other regimes in world history. There are important differences between the occupation and apartheid – for one, apartheid was based on race, the occupation is based on nationality. Yet there are important, obvious similarities, too, the main one being that in both apartheid South Africa and the West Bank, one group of people harshly, systematically and “legally” keeps another group of people down.
Anyway, however different from apartheid the occupation may be, it’s definitely more like apartheid than it is like democracy.
AT THE same time, though, neither Barak nor I are saying that “Israel proper” – Israel in its pre-Six Day War borders – is an apartheid state, a colonial regime or anything but a democracy (albeit one with a great deal of discrimination). What each of us is saying is that the occupation is killing this democracy, but that if we set the Palestinians free, this democracy will thrive.
That’s the difference between Barak, myself and other Zionists, on the one hand, who want to save the Jewish state from apartheid, and the participants in Israel Apartheid Week, who think the Jewish state, even in Israel proper, is by definition apartheid.
They’re wrong. While it’s possible to compare the condition of Palestinians in the West Bank to that of blacks in apartheid-era South Africa, there’s no comparison between the way blacks were treated under apartheid and the way Israeli Arabs are treated in this country.
The most obvious difference is that the demand of the anti-apartheid movement was always “one person, one vote.” Arab citizens of Israel, by the starkest possible contrast, have had this right since the day the Jewish state was founded.
Another brightly-lit sign that Israeli Arabs aren’t living under anything like apartheid is their wall-to-wall opposition to becoming citizens of a Palestinian state – even, as Israel Beiteinu proposes, after a change of borders that would allow them to remain on their land. Israeli Arabs aren’t Zionists, and they have altogether legitimate complaints about discrimination, but the overwhelming majority are not out to dismantle the Jewish state, only to make it more fair and equitable. (As much as I wish foreign anti-Zionists knew this, I wish even more that Israeli Jews did.)
Still, I imagine a black South African, or a white South African who fought apartheid, challenging me: Why can’t Israel just do what we did – forget about Jews and Arabs like we forgot about whites and blacks, and just remake the system into a Western-style, nonsectarian democracy? Wouldn’t “one-person, one vote” be the fairest solution for Israel/Palestine, too?
And I imagine myself answering: In theory, yes; in practice, it would be a disaster. The difference between the situation for blacks in South Africa and for Jews in Israel is that you’re surrounded by hundreds of millions of blacks living in other African countries, none of whom think whites should rule South Africa – while we’re surrounded by hundreds of millions of Arabs living in Arab countries, all of whom think Arabs should be ruling Israel/Palestine.
Imagine if you were in our situation. Imagine if instead of South Africa being bordered by blacks, it was bordered by whites – whites who believed that their kind were the rightful rulers of your country, and who, if given the chance – say, through your color-blind immigration policy – would see to it that they ruled your country again.
If South Africa’s blacks were a tiny minority in a sea of white people who held such beliefs – in a sea of old-style Afrikaners, let’s say – how secure would you feel, as a black South African, living in a nonsectarian democracy based on ‘one person, one vote’?
Now maybe you see why the Jewish state, with all its inequities, is a better, fairer, safer solution for this sliver of the world than the one you South Africans chose – rightly and wisely – in your homeland.
AND SO much for my imaginary dialogue. In all, what I’m saying is that there’s only one way to go for Jews and Arabs here, and that’s with a Jewish, democratic state alongside a Palestinian one. The Jews who want to maintain the status quo will turn Israel into a pariah state, while the people pushing for one person, one vote will wreck it altogether.
What this means is that everyone who believes in Zionism, justice and peace has to oppose both the Jewish Right and the international Left. If either of these two forces prevails, sooner or later this land won’t be fit to live in for Arab or Jew.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=170210
Imagine living, say,- in your ancestral beachside home with these kind of neighbours: terrorised by Hamasniks on the South side, Hitzbullah fanatics on the North side, PLO’s Fatah on the East side, the Khameini=Ahmadinejad ‘clan’ further down the road on one side, Bin Laden’s Al Queda on the other side and a whole lot of intimidated individuals in between.
What do you do? Run away into the sea, the only opening for you? Wait to be overrun and trampled to death?
Or build reinforcements and high walls around your ancestral home and “Compound” to try to protect your family and supporters within it, -living in the hope of eventual acceptance as a 'friendly neighbour'.
[Khamenei calls Israel " a perilous cancerous tumor inside the body of an Islamic community" (Guysen.International.News, 6/3/10)
Islamic Revolution leader Ayatollah Khamenei said " the fake, Zionist state of Israel was a perilous cancerous tumor inside the body of Islamic community."],
The only perilous cancerous tumour in our Western world today is the penetration of jihadist, fundamentalist, extremist Islamist groups into it.
Democratic Israel is the West’s front line of defence against them.
And if anyone wants to call Israel's fight for self-preservation ‘apartheid’, so be it I say!
Aren't we all entitled to that,- or should we allow ourselves to be overrun by those who want to destroy all our hard-won freedoms and democracies? Boundaries, borders, property and land ownership can be negotiated among sensible and friendly neighnours.
Not that Theocracy is the preserve only of Islam. Given half a chance, all religions have their fundamentlist groups, including those Israeli Haredim who would gladly impose their brand of religious dictatorship on all Jews. They have too much power as it is, due to a lack of religious pluralism in Israel,- i.e. there is a need for some religious competition for the minority ultra-Orthodox faith community of Israelis, when the majority of whom now consider themselves 'secularists', but have to be ruled by the strict adherence to Orthodox laws for all life-cycle events.
It's time to change the political-Orthodox stranglehold of the Israeli-Haredim minority in order to realize the true Zionist dream of all Jews, -diaspora Jewry as well as that of the majority of Israelis.
MM
(Comment)
What about a Bill to allow full rights to the other streams of Judaism such as Reform, Conservative, Progressive Judaism
as practiced by the majority of Jews in the Diaspora? Is it better to have the majority of Israeli Jews be 'secular' and the Synagogues they don't attend to be only Orthodox, but which are totally funded by the State? Is it better for the institution of marriage to become obsolete so that women who think for themselves will dispense with it altogether instead of succumbing to the will of the Orthodox hierarchies in case of marriage breakdown? Conversions,- what's the point if they can be annulled,- again at the whim of some haredim?
The Orthodox establishment needs some competition for the Jewish soul of the Jewish medina. Allow Jewish pluralism in Israel because only then can it claim that true democracy flourishes in the Jewish State.
Some thoughts on ‘Israel Apartheid Week’
By LARRY DERFNER
04/03/2010
I prefer "colonialism" to "apartheid" when describing Israel’s W. Bank rule.
‘As long as in this territory west of the Jordan River there is only one political entity called Israel, it is going to be either non-Jewish or non-democratic. If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, it will be an apartheid state.”
Those are the words of Ehud Barak, defense minister and former prime minister, at last month’s Herzliya Conference, the country’s highest-profile gathering of VIPs. Barak’s statement begs the question: Seeing that Palestinians in the West Bank haven’t been able to vote in Israeli elections since the occupation started in 1967, isn’t he saying Israel has been an apartheid state since then?
So, putting Barak’s statement in the context of this week’s news, should people really be so outraged that a few dozen colleges overseas are staging “Israel Apartheid Week”?
Myself, I prefer the term “colonialism” to “apartheid” when comparing Israel’s rule in the West Bank to other regimes in world history. There are important differences between the occupation and apartheid – for one, apartheid was based on race, the occupation is based on nationality. Yet there are important, obvious similarities, too, the main one being that in both apartheid South Africa and the West Bank, one group of people harshly, systematically and “legally” keeps another group of people down.
Anyway, however different from apartheid the occupation may be, it’s definitely more like apartheid than it is like democracy.
AT THE same time, though, neither Barak nor I are saying that “Israel proper” – Israel in its pre-Six Day War borders – is an apartheid state, a colonial regime or anything but a democracy (albeit one with a great deal of discrimination). What each of us is saying is that the occupation is killing this democracy, but that if we set the Palestinians free, this democracy will thrive.
That’s the difference between Barak, myself and other Zionists, on the one hand, who want to save the Jewish state from apartheid, and the participants in Israel Apartheid Week, who think the Jewish state, even in Israel proper, is by definition apartheid.
They’re wrong. While it’s possible to compare the condition of Palestinians in the West Bank to that of blacks in apartheid-era South Africa, there’s no comparison between the way blacks were treated under apartheid and the way Israeli Arabs are treated in this country.
The most obvious difference is that the demand of the anti-apartheid movement was always “one person, one vote.” Arab citizens of Israel, by the starkest possible contrast, have had this right since the day the Jewish state was founded.
Another brightly-lit sign that Israeli Arabs aren’t living under anything like apartheid is their wall-to-wall opposition to becoming citizens of a Palestinian state – even, as Israel Beiteinu proposes, after a change of borders that would allow them to remain on their land. Israeli Arabs aren’t Zionists, and they have altogether legitimate complaints about discrimination, but the overwhelming majority are not out to dismantle the Jewish state, only to make it more fair and equitable. (As much as I wish foreign anti-Zionists knew this, I wish even more that Israeli Jews did.)
Still, I imagine a black South African, or a white South African who fought apartheid, challenging me: Why can’t Israel just do what we did – forget about Jews and Arabs like we forgot about whites and blacks, and just remake the system into a Western-style, nonsectarian democracy? Wouldn’t “one-person, one vote” be the fairest solution for Israel/Palestine, too?
And I imagine myself answering: In theory, yes; in practice, it would be a disaster. The difference between the situation for blacks in South Africa and for Jews in Israel is that you’re surrounded by hundreds of millions of blacks living in other African countries, none of whom think whites should rule South Africa – while we’re surrounded by hundreds of millions of Arabs living in Arab countries, all of whom think Arabs should be ruling Israel/Palestine.
Imagine if you were in our situation. Imagine if instead of South Africa being bordered by blacks, it was bordered by whites – whites who believed that their kind were the rightful rulers of your country, and who, if given the chance – say, through your color-blind immigration policy – would see to it that they ruled your country again.
If South Africa’s blacks were a tiny minority in a sea of white people who held such beliefs – in a sea of old-style Afrikaners, let’s say – how secure would you feel, as a black South African, living in a nonsectarian democracy based on ‘one person, one vote’?
Now maybe you see why the Jewish state, with all its inequities, is a better, fairer, safer solution for this sliver of the world than the one you South Africans chose – rightly and wisely – in your homeland.
AND SO much for my imaginary dialogue. In all, what I’m saying is that there’s only one way to go for Jews and Arabs here, and that’s with a Jewish, democratic state alongside a Palestinian one. The Jews who want to maintain the status quo will turn Israel into a pariah state, while the people pushing for one person, one vote will wreck it altogether.
What this means is that everyone who believes in Zionism, justice and peace has to oppose both the Jewish Right and the international Left. If either of these two forces prevails, sooner or later this land won’t be fit to live in for Arab or Jew.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=170210
HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY from ICJW.
March 8, 2010
Dear Friends,
International Women’s Day this year is being marked at the United Nations as part of the Beijing +15 Review Conference. In 1995, the United Nations convened the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, one of the largest ever organized by the UN.
It brought together more than 17,000 participants, including 4000 NGO representatives. The culmination of the conference was the unanimous adoption by all 189 member states of the landmark Beijing Platform for Action, which identifies a range of actions for governments, the UN, and civil society to undertake regarding the advancement of women. Fifteen years later thousands of women have gathered in New York to share their experiences since Beijing and exchange ideas about the effectiveness of the good practices that have been adopted. The goal is to move forward together to what hopefully will be the next step in removing the remaining obstacles to gender stereotypes, unequal access to economic and financial resources, and violence against women, among other issues. The ultimate objective remains full gender equality and global empowerment for women, and, in this respect, there are challenges that still have to be met.
The ICJW delegation to the Beijing +15 Conference, as part of the Commission on the Status of Women for 2010, was composed of the ICJW Permanent Representatives to the UN in New York, Madeleine Brecher, Joan Lurie Goldberg, Judy Mintz, and Fran Butensky (Phyllis Gottdiener was unfortunately unable to attend because of health reasons), who were joined by past ICJW presidents June Jacobs (UK) and Sara Winkowski (Uruguay), incoming president Sharon Gustafson (USA), ICJW vice-president Donna Gary, and myself.
The large number of participants and the fact that the UN premises in New York are undergoing renovations caused great crowding and confusion. Many had to be turned away from events for lack of space, which was extremely frustrating for those who had traveled from very far in order to be part of those very discussions.
ICJW co-sponsored, with the International Council of Women and WIZO, an excellent panel on “The Advancement of Women’s Equality Through Empowerment,” which was very well attended. ICJW also supported events on “Commercial Sexual Exploitation and the Girl Child: Promising Prevention and Reintegration Programs,” as part of the Working Group on Girls of the NGO Committee on UNICEF, of which we are a member, and “Older Women: 15 Years Later—Where Are We Now?” as part of the NGO Committee on Older Women, to which we also belong.
At the annual ICJW Reception to mark the CSW we were honored to host the Israeli Ambassador to the UN Professor Gabriella Shalev and members of the Israeli governmental delegation to the CSW, as well as leaders of ICW, the European Women’s Lobby, local and international organizations. The reception was held this year at the Simon Wiesenthal Tolerance Center, which afforded ICJW the opportunity to support the aims of the Center to promote good will, understanding and tolerance among all peoples.
As we will soon be celebrating the 100th anniversary of ICJW’s founding, how fitting it is on this International Women’s Day to reflect on the many milestones in our history connected to the advancement of women and of Jewish women and the unending pursuit of full equality for all.
With best regards,
Leah Aharonov
President, International Council of Jewish Women
Jerusalem, ISRAEL.
Dear Friends,
International Women’s Day this year is being marked at the United Nations as part of the Beijing +15 Review Conference. In 1995, the United Nations convened the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, one of the largest ever organized by the UN.
It brought together more than 17,000 participants, including 4000 NGO representatives. The culmination of the conference was the unanimous adoption by all 189 member states of the landmark Beijing Platform for Action, which identifies a range of actions for governments, the UN, and civil society to undertake regarding the advancement of women. Fifteen years later thousands of women have gathered in New York to share their experiences since Beijing and exchange ideas about the effectiveness of the good practices that have been adopted. The goal is to move forward together to what hopefully will be the next step in removing the remaining obstacles to gender stereotypes, unequal access to economic and financial resources, and violence against women, among other issues. The ultimate objective remains full gender equality and global empowerment for women, and, in this respect, there are challenges that still have to be met.
The ICJW delegation to the Beijing +15 Conference, as part of the Commission on the Status of Women for 2010, was composed of the ICJW Permanent Representatives to the UN in New York, Madeleine Brecher, Joan Lurie Goldberg, Judy Mintz, and Fran Butensky (Phyllis Gottdiener was unfortunately unable to attend because of health reasons), who were joined by past ICJW presidents June Jacobs (UK) and Sara Winkowski (Uruguay), incoming president Sharon Gustafson (USA), ICJW vice-president Donna Gary, and myself.
The large number of participants and the fact that the UN premises in New York are undergoing renovations caused great crowding and confusion. Many had to be turned away from events for lack of space, which was extremely frustrating for those who had traveled from very far in order to be part of those very discussions.
ICJW co-sponsored, with the International Council of Women and WIZO, an excellent panel on “The Advancement of Women’s Equality Through Empowerment,” which was very well attended. ICJW also supported events on “Commercial Sexual Exploitation and the Girl Child: Promising Prevention and Reintegration Programs,” as part of the Working Group on Girls of the NGO Committee on UNICEF, of which we are a member, and “Older Women: 15 Years Later—Where Are We Now?” as part of the NGO Committee on Older Women, to which we also belong.
At the annual ICJW Reception to mark the CSW we were honored to host the Israeli Ambassador to the UN Professor Gabriella Shalev and members of the Israeli governmental delegation to the CSW, as well as leaders of ICW, the European Women’s Lobby, local and international organizations. The reception was held this year at the Simon Wiesenthal Tolerance Center, which afforded ICJW the opportunity to support the aims of the Center to promote good will, understanding and tolerance among all peoples.
As we will soon be celebrating the 100th anniversary of ICJW’s founding, how fitting it is on this International Women’s Day to reflect on the many milestones in our history connected to the advancement of women and of Jewish women and the unending pursuit of full equality for all.
With best regards,
Leah Aharonov
President, International Council of Jewish Women
Jerusalem, ISRAEL.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
The Dubai Affair: OMG! (Dershowitz)
Many Jewish people from Australia who fly to the Northern hemisphere, particularly to Europe are encoursged by Jewish travel agents to fly Emirates Airline via Dubai. It seems to be a cheaper way to fly, particularly for business-class travellers. In future, hopefully they will refuse to do so,- no matter what the savings.
They don't want Jewish travellers there,- they made that quite clear.
Next time any Arab murder will have the finger pointed at "Mossad" and Jewish tourists who may be around implicated in it, who knows how and for what.
Anyway,- why would Jewish people want to support these anti-Semites?
MM
March 2, 2010 2:38 PM
by Alan M. Dershowitz
An Intelligence Agency Misused Passports: OMG!
The complaints leveled against Israel by European countries and Australia, regarding the alleged misuse of passports by the Mossad in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, ring hollow and smack of blatant hypocrisy. Whoever did kill Mahmoud al-Mabhouh—whether it was the Israeli Mossad or someone else—clearly did have their agents use stolen or forged passports. Big deal.
Every good intelligence agency uses stolen and forged passports. The British have been especially adept at this means of spycraft. No country that uses fake passports in their intelligence operations has the moral authority to complain about the alleged misuse of passports in this case. The only ones that have a legitimate grievance are those individuals whose passports may have been misused without their knowledge.
I guess it’s the job of foreign ministries to complain publicly when other nations do what they themselves do secretly. Hypocrisy is, after all, the homage that vice pays to virtue. I’m reminded of the famous scene in Casablanca, when officer Renault declares, “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” A croupier then approaches Renault, and hands him a roll of currency: “Your winnings, sir.”
The hypocrisy in this case seems even more blatant than usual. Is it because Israel is the alleged offender, and the world has gotten accustomed to singling out Israel for double standard condemnation?
Shortly after the terrorist attacks in Bali, which killed a large number of Australian tourists, I had the opportunity to meet with the Australian Prime Minister. I was writing a book at the time on preemption, and I asked him whether he would have authorized a preemptive attack on the terrorist who killed Australian citizens, if such an attack would have saved their lives. His response was that Australia would have done anything it could, to prevent these terrorist attacks. Anything, I guess, except misusing passports? Is there anybody who believes that Australia would not have used forged or stolen passports to prevent the Bali massacres? If Great Britain could have stopped the London subway attack by misusing passports, would M6 have allowed the terrorism to go forward in the name of preserving passport integrity? Of course not. The same is true of Spain with regard to the Madrid bombing and to every other country in the world that seeks to prevent terrorism. Well, if the Mossad did in fact kill al-Mabhouh, they too did it to prevent the killing of their innocent civilians.
The Israelis are always accused by their enemies, and sometimes even by their friends, of taking “disproportionate” action to stop terrorists. But what could be more proportionate than a carefully planned and specifically targeted attack on an admitted terrorist who boasted of being an active combatant? Whoops! I guess I forgot about those darn passports. That must be the disproportionate action complained about. Saving innocent lives, on the one hand—misusing passports on the other. I guess the right moral resolution, according to some foreign ministries, is to let innocent victims die—at least as long as its only Israeli victims.
It’s interesting, and disturbing, that more criticism is being directed against Israel for allegedly using stolen passports than for allegedly killing a terrorist. That’s because no Western country wants to appear to be sympathetic to a terrorist. The “victims” of passport fraud are innocent civilians, but the injury they have suffered pales in comparison to the injuries—deaths—prevented by the well-deserved death of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.
If the deaths of a small number of innocent civilians is deemed “proportional” to the killing of a terrorist combatant, than surely the discomfort of a small number of innocent victims of passport fraud is proportional.
The high dudgeon expressed by foreign ministries over stolen passports is worse than hypocritical. It undercuts the war against terrorism.
There ought to be concern, among Western democracies, about how easy it is to use forged or stolen passports. Dubai should be conducting an investigation, but the focus should be on how simple it was for those carrying these phony passports to get into their country. The misuse of passports is, after all, a primary tool used by terrorists to smuggle themselves into Western countries, from which they can engage in worldwide terrorism. There are thousands of forged and fraudulent British passports circulating around the world today. Many are in the hands of terrorists. That should be the focus of any investigation, not the occasional and controlled misuse of passports by Western intelligence agencies to combat terrorism.
Whoever sneaked into Dubai using fake passports may have done that country a service in warning them to tighten up their passport procedures. Next time it may be a terrorist who tries to enter the country. Wait! Isn’t that exactly what happened when al-Mabhouh walked through security using a real passport with his real name? I guess in Dubai you don’t have to use a fake passport if you’re a terrorist, but you do if you’re trying to stop terrorists—at least if the terrorism is directed only against Israel. I guess Dubai is less concerned about letting terrorists into their country with real passports than in letting those who would stop terrorism into their country with fake passports. It’s a topsy turvy world out there.
http://www.hudsonny.org/2010/03/an-intelligence-agency-misused-passports-omg.php
They don't want Jewish travellers there,- they made that quite clear.
Next time any Arab murder will have the finger pointed at "Mossad" and Jewish tourists who may be around implicated in it, who knows how and for what.
Anyway,- why would Jewish people want to support these anti-Semites?
MM
March 2, 2010 2:38 PM
by Alan M. Dershowitz
An Intelligence Agency Misused Passports: OMG!
The complaints leveled against Israel by European countries and Australia, regarding the alleged misuse of passports by the Mossad in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, ring hollow and smack of blatant hypocrisy. Whoever did kill Mahmoud al-Mabhouh—whether it was the Israeli Mossad or someone else—clearly did have their agents use stolen or forged passports. Big deal.
Every good intelligence agency uses stolen and forged passports. The British have been especially adept at this means of spycraft. No country that uses fake passports in their intelligence operations has the moral authority to complain about the alleged misuse of passports in this case. The only ones that have a legitimate grievance are those individuals whose passports may have been misused without their knowledge.
I guess it’s the job of foreign ministries to complain publicly when other nations do what they themselves do secretly. Hypocrisy is, after all, the homage that vice pays to virtue. I’m reminded of the famous scene in Casablanca, when officer Renault declares, “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” A croupier then approaches Renault, and hands him a roll of currency: “Your winnings, sir.”
The hypocrisy in this case seems even more blatant than usual. Is it because Israel is the alleged offender, and the world has gotten accustomed to singling out Israel for double standard condemnation?
Shortly after the terrorist attacks in Bali, which killed a large number of Australian tourists, I had the opportunity to meet with the Australian Prime Minister. I was writing a book at the time on preemption, and I asked him whether he would have authorized a preemptive attack on the terrorist who killed Australian citizens, if such an attack would have saved their lives. His response was that Australia would have done anything it could, to prevent these terrorist attacks. Anything, I guess, except misusing passports? Is there anybody who believes that Australia would not have used forged or stolen passports to prevent the Bali massacres? If Great Britain could have stopped the London subway attack by misusing passports, would M6 have allowed the terrorism to go forward in the name of preserving passport integrity? Of course not. The same is true of Spain with regard to the Madrid bombing and to every other country in the world that seeks to prevent terrorism. Well, if the Mossad did in fact kill al-Mabhouh, they too did it to prevent the killing of their innocent civilians.
The Israelis are always accused by their enemies, and sometimes even by their friends, of taking “disproportionate” action to stop terrorists. But what could be more proportionate than a carefully planned and specifically targeted attack on an admitted terrorist who boasted of being an active combatant? Whoops! I guess I forgot about those darn passports. That must be the disproportionate action complained about. Saving innocent lives, on the one hand—misusing passports on the other. I guess the right moral resolution, according to some foreign ministries, is to let innocent victims die—at least as long as its only Israeli victims.
It’s interesting, and disturbing, that more criticism is being directed against Israel for allegedly using stolen passports than for allegedly killing a terrorist. That’s because no Western country wants to appear to be sympathetic to a terrorist. The “victims” of passport fraud are innocent civilians, but the injury they have suffered pales in comparison to the injuries—deaths—prevented by the well-deserved death of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.
If the deaths of a small number of innocent civilians is deemed “proportional” to the killing of a terrorist combatant, than surely the discomfort of a small number of innocent victims of passport fraud is proportional.
The high dudgeon expressed by foreign ministries over stolen passports is worse than hypocritical. It undercuts the war against terrorism.
There ought to be concern, among Western democracies, about how easy it is to use forged or stolen passports. Dubai should be conducting an investigation, but the focus should be on how simple it was for those carrying these phony passports to get into their country. The misuse of passports is, after all, a primary tool used by terrorists to smuggle themselves into Western countries, from which they can engage in worldwide terrorism. There are thousands of forged and fraudulent British passports circulating around the world today. Many are in the hands of terrorists. That should be the focus of any investigation, not the occasional and controlled misuse of passports by Western intelligence agencies to combat terrorism.
Whoever sneaked into Dubai using fake passports may have done that country a service in warning them to tighten up their passport procedures. Next time it may be a terrorist who tries to enter the country. Wait! Isn’t that exactly what happened when al-Mabhouh walked through security using a real passport with his real name? I guess in Dubai you don’t have to use a fake passport if you’re a terrorist, but you do if you’re trying to stop terrorists—at least if the terrorism is directed only against Israel. I guess Dubai is less concerned about letting terrorists into their country with real passports than in letting those who would stop terrorism into their country with fake passports. It’s a topsy turvy world out there.
http://www.hudsonny.org/2010/03/an-intelligence-agency-misused-passports-omg.php
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