Settlers from Yitzhar torched a car in Einabus village in the Nablus district.

Fanatical religious settlers who believe God gave them the land have been attacking Palestinians who they hope to intimidate into moving away.

Settlers Torch Car in Nablus

NABLUS (Ma’an) — A group of settlers on Thursday set fire to a car in Nablus, a PA official said.

Three settlers from Yitzhar settlement set fire to the car in Einabus village, PA official Ghassan Daghlas told Ma’an.

The owner, Zain Mustafa Allan, said the car was parked outside his home when the attack took place.

Earlier, settlers threw rocks at Palestinian cars driving near Yitzhar settlement, Daghlas said.

The Nablus district experienced the majority of settler violence in 2011, The Palestine Center says.

In 2011, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that settler attacks had increased by 50 percent on the previous year.

Settler violence against local Palestinian communities is widespread, but figures compiled by Israeli rights group Yesh Din have repeatedly shown that nine out of 10 police investigations about settler crimes fail to lead to a prosecution.

Uprooted trees

This is a recurring thing, in which extremist settlers, who believe that God gave them the land attempt to intimidate and terrorize Palestinian landowners in the hope that they will leave and then the settlers can annex the land. (h/t: Musa)

NABLUS (Ma’an) — Israeli settlers on Wednesday set fire to hundreds of trees in Nablus in the northern West Bank, a Fatah official said.

Ghassan Doughlas said residents of Tappuah settlement chopped down and torched around 250 olive trees in Jammain village. The settlement is built on land belonging to the village.

Settlers also chopped down 17 trees in nearby village Burin and forced shepherds off their pastures in Aqraba and Yanun, also in Nablus, Doughlas said.

I’am not sure if the following is a report of the same incident, but it was reported a week ago, and reports that the settlers came from Etamar rather than Tappuah (via. Occupied-Palestine):

NABLUS, (PIC)– Jewish settlers uprooted 200 olive trees near Aqraba village, Nablus, on Wednesday morning, local sources said.

Hamza Deiriya, a member of the committee for the defense of Aqraba land, said that the settlers came from Etamar settlement and chopped off the trees planted in an area of six dunums.

He noted that the settlers were attacking this same area for the sixth time, recalling that olive trees and water wells in it were destroyed at their hands.

He charged that the Jewish settlers want to terrorize the Palestinian landowners and to annex their land.

He grew up in Israel, served in the IDF as a lieutenant and is running for Congress, one of his main goals is to ‘stop the Islamization of America.’

What if a Turk who was born in the US but grew up in Istanbul came to America and said one of his primary goals was to end US funding to Israel? You can bet that he would be accused of stealth jihad and Islamization of the US:

Israeli candidate running for Congress in Texas pledges to ‘stop Islamization of America’

(Islamophobia-Watch.com)

Itamar Gelbman was born in New York 30 years ago and as a child moved with his parents to Herzliya, where he was raised. He studied business management and computer science at Tel Aviv University and served as an undercover reserve officer in the Tel Aviv Police District.

After graduation, Gelbman joined the IDF where he was a lieutenant in what he calls the “army special forces.” He said he could not be more specific about what he did in the army but that he received multiple awards, including a commendation from the IDF chief of staff.

Eight years ago, he moved to Texas. After US President Barack Obama was elected in 2008, Gelbman decided to get involved in politics.

Gelbman is running in the May 29 Republican Primary in Texas’s Sixth Congressional District, which is outside Dallas. “I’m the only candidate for the seat who is pro-Israel,” Gelbman said.

Gelbman said he believes American politicians need to give Israel the benefit of the doubt. He does not believe the US should involve itself in the settlement issue and he would work to block foreign aid to Islamic countries that act against Israel and the United States.

“I would defend Israel and be their voice in the House,” he said. “Israel should be allowed to do whatever it needs to do. The Palestinians need to change their education system and accept Israel as a Jewish state with Jerusalem as its capital.” Gelbman said he would work to make sure a law requiring the US to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem would be enforced.

He received national attention when Muslims in his district were offended by his campaign flyer in which vowed to “fight the Islamization of America.”

Gelbman recently came to Israel to spend Passover with family. While he was in the country, he met with MK Danny Danon and other Likud politicians.

Jerusalem Post, 7 May 2012

Not so sure about the “national attention” bit. The only report I can find of Gelbman antagonising the Muslim community is by a local TV station.

A follow up to our story on the Christians of Palestine. We mentioned that Bob Simon of 60 Minutes was going to do a report on Christians in the Holy Land and I have to say he did a pretty good job.

He covered the plight of Christians in the Holy Land and how there has been a slow exodus over the past few decades due to Israeli occupation policies. He also covered the Kairos initiative and how that is making inroads within Palestinian society.

Most intriguingly, Bob Simon lays the smack down on Israeli Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren at the 11 minute mark. Oren also does some blame shifting, saying that it is Muslims who are persecuting Christians not Israelis:

Veteran CBS News correspondent Bob Simon experienced something while reporting a “60 Minutes” piece last night, that he’d never before. His story was on Christian residents leaving the Holy Land and the causes behind it: Islamic extremism? Israeli occupation? or something more? Simon interviewed clerics from the Orthodox, Catholic and Lutheran faiths, also Palestinian residents of the West Bank, and Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Dr.Michael Oren. But Oren didn’t like the premise of the story and called Simon’s boss, CBS News chairman and “60 Minutes” EP Jeff Fager long before it story aired.

“Mr. Ambassador, I’ve been doing this a long time and I’ve received lots of reactions from just about everyone I’ve done stories about. But I’ve never gotten a reaction before from a story that hasn’t been broadcast yet,” said Simon. “Well, there’s a first time for everything, Bob,” said the ambassador.

“Jesus was the first Palestinian martyr.” –Yasser Arafat

A few months back Israel’s Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren penned an article titled, “Israel and the plight of Palestinian Christians,” in which he attempted to manipulate the reality of Christians in the Holy Land. Oren’s article came on the heels of an Islamophobic screed by Ayaan H. Ali in Newsweek titled, “The War on Christians.”

Also, today, Bob Simon of 60 minutes will be reporting on the “slow exodus of Christians from the Holy Land.”

As the birthplace of Christianity, Palestine is home to the oldest Christian populations in the world. But after centuries of continuous presence in the Holy Land, the creation of modern-day Israel in 1948 precipitated a quiet exodus of native Christians.

Although Christian opinion on the Arab-Israeli conflict has always been mixed in Western countries, many evangelicals have been blind to the plight of  Palestinians in favor of Israeli hardliners. Though their unconditional support for Israel can be attributed to many factors, the phenomenon of “Christian Zionism” can at least in part be traced to concerted outreach efforts on behalf of Israel–bolstered by negative portrayals of the Palestinian people, and an absence of their narrative.

Christian Palestinian groups like Sabeel Center and Al-Bushra have had an on-line presence for years, but they were not widely known outside the Middle East. Recently, Palestinian Christians reached out to the global community with the launch of the Kairos Palestine Document, modeled after the South African Kairos Document published in 1985 as part of a successful effort to abolish Apartheid:

This document is the Christian Palestinians’ word to the world about what is happening in Palestine. It is written at this time when we wanted to see the Glory of the grace of God in this land and in the sufferings of its people. In this spirit the document requests the international community to stand by the Palestinian people who have faced oppression, displacement, suffering and clear apartheid for more than six decades. The suffering continues while the international community silently looks on at the occupying State, Israel. Our word is a cry of hope, with love, prayer and faith in God.

We address it first of all to ourselves and then to all the churches and Christians in the world, asking them to stand against injustice and apartheid, urging them to work for a just peace in our region, calling on them to revisit theologies that justify crimes perpetrated against our people and the dispossession of the land.

Also, last month in the West Bank city of  Christ’s birth, the Bethlehem Bible College  held an annual conference under the banner, “Christ at the Checkpoint.” Hundreds of Christians from around the world attended, and organizers hailed the event as, ”a major breakthrough in the evangelical world.”

While Palestinian Christians have so far reached only a small minority of their Western counterparts, their apparent success has captured the attention of Israel’s increasingly worried supporters.

Christians for Palestine

By Lee Smith, Tablet

For most American Jews and Israelis, evangelical Christians are synonymous with zealous, biblically inspired support of the Jewish state—so zealous, in fact, that it makes some Jews uneasy. But the days when Israel could count on unconditional support from evangelicals may be coming to an end.

Last month, a conference convened in Bethlehem by Palestinian activists and Christian clergy long at odds with the Jewish state managed to bring a number of leading lights from the evangelical community in North America and Europe to the Holy Land. Many of the speeches at the conference touched on themes that one would commonly hear at a BDS teach-in, like blaming the entire Middle East conflict on Israel’s occupation and the settlements.

Indeed, the name of the conference, Christ at the Checkpoint, is indicative of the different direction this segment of the evangelical movement is heading toward. The idea is that evangelicals should rethink their support for a state that occupies another people and oppresses them. Once they get the full story, conference organizers hope, Western evangelicals may find they have more in common with the downtrodden Palestinians than with the Israelis.

To pro-Israel evangelicals and Zionists who were paying attention, Christ at the Checkpoint was a wake-up call. The larger trend, which for want of a better phrase might be called the pro-Palestinian evangelical movement and is indeed spearheaded by Palestinian Christians, is already changing minds. Giving them momentum are money raised in the United States, theology, and perhaps most important of all, a movie. The documentary film With God on Our Side is leaving many former pro-Israel evangelicals wondering why they never heard the Palestinian side of the story.

Many friends of Israel, as well as Israelis, have long been concerned that evangelical support is premised largely on self-interest of an especially macabre nature. Israel, in this reading, is ground zero for the apocalypse: Before Christ can return to Earth, the Jews must return to Israel and the Temple must be restored, ushering in first a time of tribulation and then a reign of peace.

Of course, the apocalypse and Christ’s return is not the only justification for Christian support of Israel. Indeed, this end-time scenario embarrasses some evangelicals whose support is premised on the idea that God keeps his promises, not only to Christians but also to Jews, to whom God pledged the land of Israel. This conviction is further buttressed by a sense of historical responsibility, specifically to stand with the Jews and atone for the failure of Christians during the Holocaust to save the nation that gave them their savior.

Though the vast majority of evangelicals still maintain that support, for the first time since the establishment of Israel in 1948, there is an increasingly heated debate in the evangelical community that may augur a shift in the political winds. And if the Christ at the Checkpoint camp wins out, the pro-Israel Jewish community that once looked warily upon evangelical support may come to regard that movement with nostalgia.

***

“The debate in the Jewish community should not be about whether or not to be comfortable with Christian support for Israel,” David Brog, executive director of Christians United for Israel, told me last week. “Christians are going to be involved in the issue whether we are comfortable or not. The question is whether they’re going to be on Israel’s side or not.”

Christians United for Israel is the United States’ largest and best-known Christian Zionist organization. Founded in 2006 by John Hagee, pastor of the CornerStone Church in San Antonio, Texas, CUFI boasts over a million members. Hagee has found himself in the middle of political controversy in the past—most recently during John McCain’s unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign when his statements regarding the Holocaust were misinterpreted and McCain rejected his support. (Hagee declined to comment for this article.)

Hagee and other figures base support for the Jewish state on biblical foundations, specifically on Genesis 12:3, where God tells Abraham, “I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee.” The message is clear: Those who support Israel will be rewarded by God. But pro-Israel evangelicals have sent their flock out into the field vulnerable—that is, without an account of the conflict that besets the citizens of the present-day homeland of the Jews. Armed only with a biblical defense of the Jewish state, evangelicals are unprepared to justify it on political grounds.

This gap has made room for people across the cultural and ideological spectrum—whose motivations run the gamut from genuine compassion for Palestinians to anti-Semitism—to fill the space with their own interpretations of contemporary Middle East history. Not surprisingly, many of these narratives tend to be drawn from precincts of the left, like the BDS movement, that are known for their hostility to the Jewish state. What is peculiar is that these accounts are being entertained and sometimes embraced in evangelical churches, Bible schools, and Christian colleges that are not typically known for their progressive politics.

It wasn’t difficult for these Christian critics of Israel to find a weak link in the Christian Zionist narrative—it’s the ethical morass inherent in the formulation of Genesis 12:3. The children of the Bible, Christians as well as Jews, believe that all people are created in God’s image and are therefore born with individual dignity. But if people of faith are supposed to bless Israel because they’ll be blessed in return, then they are treating others, Jews and Arabs, not as individuals but rather as instruments in their own spiritual drama.

You can’t treat people as chess pieces, says Porter Speakman Jr., the 40-year-old director of With God on Our Side. This 82-minute-long documentary, which premiered in 2010 and is now being shown at churches and college campuses, has had a major role in tilting evangelical opinion, especially among young people, against Israel. Speakman told me in a phone interview that isn’t aim isn’t to “delegitimize Israel, but to be critical of policies that are having an effect on real people’s lives.”

“I grew up in a Christian home in the south, where not to support Israel was to go against God,” Speakman told me. He said he made the film in order to explore a question that he thinks has been missing from the conversation in the evangelical community. That is: “What are the consequences of my beliefs and my theology for real people living on the ground?”

With God on Our Side follows the intellectual odyssey of Christopher Harrell, a twenty-something recent film-school graduate, who is trying to come to grips with the reality of the Arab-Israeli conflict. This is a very different story from the Bible-based injunctions that formed his spiritual life as a child. The film’s narrative trajectory starts with Harrell’s parents, who he recalls once celebrated Passover—“I’m not sure why we did that. We’re not Jewish. We’re just this normal American Midwestern family”—and who support Israel because that’s “just what everyone did.” The film moves then to a series of interviews with figures in the evangelical community known for their animus toward Zionism, like Gary Burge and Stephen Sizer, and writers outside the evangelical milieu whose reputation rests on their hostility to Israel, like Ilan Pappé and Norman Finkelstein.

These interviews challenge the mainstream evangelical narrative with well-worn accusations typical of BDSers. For instance, the Israeli occupation, says one South African evangelical, is “apartheid on steroids.”

“Growing up,” Speakman said of his childhood, “there was never a choice, you were supposed to love and support Israel. That meant following Genesis 12 as well as a fulfillment of endtime prophecies. But does supporting Israel mean supporting all of Israel’s geopolitical decisions?”

Speakman, who lived in Israel with his wife from 1998 until 2003, said that he thinks the role of Christians is to support both Jews and Arabs in their search for a solution. But some critics of his documentary think that the film goes much further. They see it as making the case that evangelicals have taken the wrong side—favoring a nation inhabited by those who rejected Jesus as their savior rather than the Christian communities that have existed in the Holy Land since the time of Christ. The issue is that key segments of the Palestinian Christian community have a vested political interest in delegitimizing Zionism—a fact that Speakman and other Western activists in the evangelical community may or may not be aware of.

Among the Palestinian outfits leading the campaign critical of Israel is the Bethlehem Bible College, which organized Christ at the Checkpoint, for which Speakman served as a media coordinator. The most prominent and active organization is the Jerusalem-based Sabeel, headed by a Palestinian Anglican priest, Rev. Naim Ateek. Its American branch, Friends of Sabeel North America, is based in Portland, Ore., and raises money for its Jerusalem affiliate.

“Sabeel is nakedly hostile to Israel,” Dexter Van Zile, Christian media analyst for CAMERA, told me in an interview. In an article on Sabeel and Ateek published last week, Van Zile quotes the clergyman at length, including this peculiar admission: “From my perspective as a Palestinian Christian, Zionism is a step backward in the development of Judaism.”

***

According to Randy Neal, Western Regional Coordinator of CUFI, the ideological foundations of the pro-Palestinian Christian movement are grounded in both liberation theology and replacement theology. The first is a politicized doctrine that requires a continual mindset of victimhood, in order to solicit political sympathy and action on behalf of the “oppressed” against the “oppressors.” The latter holds that the church has replaced Jews as God’s chosen and become the real Israel.

“It’s not just that church has replaced Israel,” said Neal, but for many of the Palestinian Christian clergy and their activist sympathizers, “the Palestinian church is the real church. Jesus, on this reading, was an underdog, who came to champion the underdog. He was oppressed by the Romans, so if you are Christ-like, you are also oppressed, like the Palestinians. This increasingly includes the idea that Jesus was a Palestinian. It’s an adopted narrative that is believed to have started with Yasser Arafat, but to some people it’s become a gospel fact.”

In other words, it’s a narrative that denies Jesus’ Jewish identity. “It is a very ugly expression of Christian anti-Semitism,” Neal said.

But Brog, Neal’s colleague, disagrees: “anti-Semitism is not the driving force.” Rather, he said, the impetus comes from a combination of two ideological streams. “There’s the anti-Israel perspective, which comes from the Palestinian Christians, who are using theology to preach a politically anti-Israel message. And then there are the Christians based in North America and Europe who are allowing liberal politics to trump Christian beliefs.”

The unpleasant reality is that Christian anti-Semitism has as much, if not more, theological justification as Christian support for Israel. Compared to two millennia of Christian anti-Semitism culminating with the Holocaust, one biblical verse is a pretty thin thread on which to hang support of the Jewish state.

Neal says that he believes Christian love of Israel is premised on Genesis 12:3 and on Joel 3:2: “I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will enter into judgement with them there for my people, my heritage Israel.”

“We are supposed to love what God loves,” Neal said. “We consider ourselves ambassadors of Christ. For centuries, Christians abused and abandoned the apple of God’s eye, and we are not going to let that happen again on our watch.”

But as CUFI pushes Genesis and Joel, the Christ at the Checkpoint crowd is focused exclusively on Palestinians’ distress and apparently ignoring history. CAMERA’s Van Zile, who attended last month’s conference, noted that nowhere in the pro-Palestinian evangelical narrative is there any account of Jewish persecution. “I’ve heard moving testimony about Palestinian suffering. But they don’t acknowledge Muslim anti-Semitism. They don’t talk about Palestinian leadership, or how it’s abused the Palestinian community. There’s no account of Hamas in their story about Israel.”

********

John Hagee of the rabid Zionist Christians United for Israel, trying to drag the US into a war with Iran:

David Ha'ivri

We have linked several times in the past to articles on YNetNews, a popular Israeli online news source. I am unaware of their “op-ed” policy, but today they published an article by David Ha’ivri titled, The Arab-Muslim Narrative.

Ha’ivri is the “director of the Shomron Liaison Office. He and his wife Mollie live in Kfar Tapuach.” Ha’ivri’s op-ed is racist tripe and generalizes both Arabs and Muslims.

I can understand such an op-ed being published on Arutz Sheva, or the The Israel Times Online but on YNetNews, a leading Israeli online site read by hundreds of thousands daily?

Here are some of the most egregious quotes:

This conversation was a great help to me in understanding the Muslim Arab mindset and culture. Facts are not really so important to them. They can be made up or even changed as needed.

Muslim people celebrate detachment from reality as part of their worship:

Understand that we are dealing with people who celebrate being detached from reality as part of their worship of Allah.

And perhaps the most racist and ridiculous of them all:

It is unrealistic, in my opinion, to believe that we can turn the Arabs into a society that truly embraces western concepts and values – like facts and sticking to truth. It makes much more sense to understand that fantasy and stretching the truth are very deeply embedded in the mindset of the Muslim and Arab culture. I do not mean to say this as an insult, but to suggest that we accept it as a fact, take it as it is and move on.

Mamilla cemetery in Jerusalem, where Israel has approved the start of work on a controversial Museum of Tolerance, Ahmad Gharabli / AFP / Getty Images

(h/t BA)

Tolerance of Whom?

by Rashid Khalidi

A supporter of jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti hangs his posters in Ramallah in 2004. Photograph: Muhammed Muheisen/AP

Where is the Palestinian Nelson Mandela?

It seems he’s in an Israeli prison–and has been recently banished to solitary confinement.

After a decade of imprisonment, Marwan Barghouti at last called for an end to fruitless negotiations with Israel, non-violent popular resistance, and appeals to the international community.

For decades, Israel has played a game of “Let’s negotiate over how we divide the pizza while I eat the pizza,” carrying on the charade of a “peace process” while relentlessly building illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories. And why not?

Israel enjoys nearly unconditional support from the United States, and wherever huge settlement blocks are built,  Palestinian “leaders”ultimately agree to cede them to Israel as part of a final peace settlement. Often built on the choicest land, the settlements cut deep into the West Bank, carving a Medusa-like border and leaving dim prospects for a viable Palestinian state.

Meanwhile, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip languish in the world’s largest open air prison camp as the “international community” looks on, largely indifferent. According to an article published on Muslim Matters, the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem has concluded that Israel:

 ”..has created a system of legally sanctioned separation based on discrimination that has, perhaps, no parallel any where in the world since the apartheid regime of South Africa.“

A recently released report from the United Nations also said Israel’s policies in the Palestinian territories “exhibit features of colonialism and apartheid.”

Last September, Palestinians appealed to the UN, submitting a bid for statehood. The US immediately threatened to veto any vote to recognize Palestine as a state, and the bid remains stalled. When one agency, UNESCO, recently voted to accept Palestine as a member, the US continued its pattern of bullying the international body on behalf of Israel by cutting off funding, convincing many observers there is little hope of achieving the two-state solution enshrined in international law.

Prominent Palestinian philosopher Sari Nusseibeh has not only lost hope of an independent Palestinian state, but is s equally pessimistic about the prospects of a achieving a single, democratic state for both Palestinians and Israelis on all of the land in question. He has urged Palestinians to do the unthinkable and ignore their political rights in favor of securing basic human rights, because he believes there is no other option in the foreseeable future.

Yet despite this grim reality, Marwan Barghouti seems to have achieved the impossible from his prison cell in Israel: He has won the support of Palestine’s rival political factions, Fatah and Hamas, and both groups have publicly endorsed his recent statement. Barghouti also enjoys widespread support among the Palestinian people, and for many, he has become a national icon.

He should also be lauded for his commitment to non-violence. Instead, in a desperate move that is likely to backfire, Israel has responded to this latest “threat of peace” by banishing Palestine’s Nelson Mandela to solitary confinement.

Marwan Barghouti calls for popular uprising for statehood. Israel puts him in solitary confinement

by Annie Robbins, Mondweiss

A week ago on March 26th Marwan Barghouti, the Palestinian leader who has been imprisoned for ten years, called for a Third Intifada: a mass nonviolent uprising officially ending the charade of “peace negotiations,” and ending “all coordination with Israel” and turning “to the UN General Assembly and the rest of its agencies” to further Palestine’s bid for statehood.

Barghouti’s letter, read aloud during a rally in Ramallah, directly challenges the policy of Abbas and the Palestinian Authority for maintaining the occupation through their cooperation with Israel.

Yesterday the state of Israel punished Marwan Barghouti by placing him in solitary confinement.

Uri Avnery wrote The New Mandela on the eve of Land Day 2012. I urge everyone to read the entire article.

When the Oslo process died with the assassinations of Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, Marwan and his organization became targets. Successive Israeli leaders – Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon – decided to put an end to the two-state agenda. In the brutal “Defensive Shield operation (launched by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, the new leader of the Kadima Party) the Palestinian Authority was attacked, its services destroyed and many of its activists arrested.

Marwan Barghouti was put on trial. It was alleged that, as the leader of Tanzim, he was responsible for several “terrorist” attacks in Israel. His trial was a mockery, resembling a Roman gladiatorial arena more than a judicial process. The hall was packed with howling rightists, presenting themselves as “victims of terrorism”. Members of Gush Shalom protested against the trial inside the court building but we were not allowed anywhere near the accused.

Marwan was sentenced to five life sentences. The picture of him raising his shackled hands above his head has become a Palestinian national icon. When I visited his family in Ramallah, it was hanging in the living room.

He calls for a Third Intifada, a non-violent mass uprising in the spirit of the Arab Spring.

His manifesto is a clear rejection of the policy of Mahmoud Abbas, who maintains limited but all-important cooperation with the Israeli occupation authorities. Marwan calls for a total rupture of all forms of cooperation, whether economic, military or other.

A focal point of this cooperation is the day-to-day collaboration of the American-trained Palestinian security services with the Israeli occupation forces. This arrangement has effectively stopped violent Palestinian attacks in the occupied territories and in Israel proper. It guarantees, In practice, the security of the growing Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Marwan also calls for a total boycott of Israel, Israeli institutions and products in the Palestinian territories and throughout the world. Israeli products should disappear from West Bank shops, Palestinian products should be promoted.

At the same time, Marwan advocates an official end to the charade called “peace negotiations”. This term, by the way, is never heard anymore in Israel. First it was replaced with “peace process”, then “political process”, and lately “the political matter”. The simple word “peace” has become taboo among rightists and most “leftists” alike. It’s political poison.

Marwan proposes to make the absence of peace negotiations official. No more international talk about “reviving the peace process”, no more rushing around of ridiculous people like Tony Blair, no more hollow announcements by Hillary Clinton and Catherine Ashton, no more empty declarations of the “Quartet”. Since the Israeli government clearly has abandoned the two-state solution – which it never really accepted in the first place – keeping up the pretense just harms the Palestinian struggle.

Instead of this hypocrisy, Marwan proposes to renew the battle in the UN. First, apply again to the Security Council for the acceptance of Palestine as a member state, challenging the US to use its solitary veto openly against practically the whole world. After the expected rejection of the Palestinian request by the Council as a result of the veto, request a decision by the General Assembly, where the vast majority would vote in favor. Though this would not be binding, it would demonstrate that the freedom of Palestine enjoys the overwhelming support of the family of nations, and isolate Israel (and the US) even more.

Parallel to this course of action, Marwan insists on Palestinian unity, using his considerable moral force to put pressure on both Fatah and Hamas.

To summarize, Marwan Barghouti has given up all hope of achieving Palestinian freedom through cooperation with Israel, or even Israeli opposition forces. The Israeli peace movement is not mentioned anymore. “Normalization” has become a dirty word.

Guardian  April 2, 2012 

Prisons Authority spokeswoman Sivan Weizman said Barghouti “has been placed in isolation for a week and denied visits and access to the inmates’ canteen for a month” as a punishment for issuing the statement.

AFP

“I call on the Palestinian Authority to end all forms of coordination, security and economic, with the occupation,” wrote Barghouti…..

“The job of the Palestinian security services is to provide security and protection to Palestinian citizens, not to protect the occupation,” said the man widely recognised as the driving force behind the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, and who still commands great respect among Palestinians.

The letter also called on Abbas to “stop marketing the illusion that it is possible to end the occupation through these negotiations.”

……….

“We must affirm the absolute right of our people to resist occupation in all ways, and in the way appropriate to the situation — and at this stage, popular resistance serves our people,” he said.

Marking the tenth anniversary of his imprisonment, this is the first time Marwan Barghouti has called for a complete halt in ‘peace negotiations’.

Christians helping Jewish settlers cultivate stolen land

Evangelical Christians are heeding the call to help Jewish settlers occupying Palestinian land harvest  crops. They are doing so because the “Bible” says so.

So the Bible legitimates the confiscation of other people’s land, driving them out and then aiding the occupiers and initiators of violence in reaping the harvest from land that they stole?:

Christians Called To Serve Jewish Settlers

(Forward.com)

PSAGOT, WEST BANK — It is a typical, even stereotypical, West Bank settlement scene: bearded young men pruning vines while enthusing about the Chosen People’s God-given right to this region. But in this case it is Jesus, and not Jewish identity, that animates these tillers.

For years, Westerners have flocked to the Israeli-occupied West Bank to help Palestinians with their olive harvest, as part of left-wing activist groups like the International Solidarity Movement. Among other things, the activists seek to resist efforts by settlers to disrupt the Palestinians’ reaping.

Now, the settlers have international harvest help of their own. The young Christians working in the Psagot Winery’s vineyards near Ramallah in mid-March were members of HaYovel. Last year, this Tennessee-based evangelical ministry started a large-scale operation to bring volunteers to tend and harvest settler grapes. They attach epic importance to their work.

NATHAN JEFFAY

God’s Work: Volunteers come to the West Bank to further a Biblical mission.

“When you see prophecy taking place, you have the option to do nothing or become a vessel to it,” said volunteer pruner Blake Smith, a 20-year-old farmer from Virginia.

HaYovel preaches the old-school ideology of Religious Zionist settlers with one innovation: a sacred role for Christians.

The group’s members believe that the establishment of the State of Israel, its subsequent conquering of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and specifically the flourishing of agriculture in the occupied areas are fulfillments of biblical prophecies. Like many settlers, HaYovel cites a prophecy by Jeremiah that refers to the Samaria region of the West Bank: “Again you shall plant vines on the mountains of Samaria.” And like them, HaYovel believes that the settlement movement will help to bring the Messiah to Jerusalem — the only difference being that the volunteers anticipate a second coming.

But these Christians also focus on a prophecy rarely cited by settlers, who tend to place ideological value on using only avoda ivrit, or “Hebrew labor,” whenever possible. “And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and foreigners shall be your plowmen and your vine-dressers,” Isaiah prophesized to the Israelites.

Basing itself on this verse, HaYovel — which takes its name from the Bible’s twice-a-century agricultural jubilee — has made reverence of settlers into a central religious virtue.

“Being here, we just want to serve — and to bless the Jewish people in building up the land,” said Joshua Waller, a HaYovel ministry leader and one of the 11 children of Tommy Waller, the group’s founder and spiritual head. During a lunch break, a settler with yarmulke and sidelocks came to address volunteers. They keenly asked him to explain why the international community is wrong and the West Bank is not really occupied, and seemed prepared to accept what they were told. “We are not here to teach anything, just to learn,” Joshua Waller said shortly before the talk began.

To some of the volunteers, becoming settler laborers is a way of righting a historical Christian wrong. “This is a crazy time,” said Joe Trad Jr., a 23-year-old college dropout from Missouri. Over 2,000 years of contention, he said, “we saw Constantine and the Holocaust. Yet today, in this spot of the world, you have Christians and Jews for the first time with the same goal.”

The volunteers are a mix of people who, like Smith, had a mainstream Christian upbringing and were drawn to HaYovel out of curiosity; people from families that gave up the organized church to develop their own brand of religion, one they see as closer to Judaism, and some people who are emerging from personal crises.

Trad, a former alcoholic and cocaine addict, went through rehab and became a Christian two years ago. He described his volunteering as a way of giving thanks “for what the Lord has done for me in my life by freeing me from these addictions.”

Aaron Hood, a 21-year-old HaYovel staff employee, comes from a Tennessee family of 14 children that gave up on any organized church and started observing the New Testament and the Hebrew Bible according to its own understanding. The family observes Saturday, not Sunday, as a rest day.

University of North Carolina students walk out on David Horowitz as he compares Muslims to Nazis

About 20 minutes after David Horowitz began speaking Monday, nearly all the students in attendance walked out of Hamilton Hall in protest. The action came in response to what participants said were slanderous remarks about Muslims and members of Arab nations.

Committee for a Better Carolina, along with Christians United for Israel, sponsored Horowitz to speak at UNC in a lecture titled “Why Israel is the Victim in the Middle East.”

Horowitz is a pro-Israel activist who has been the subject of controversy in the past for buying anti-Palestine ads in college newspapers. In Monday’s lecture, Horowitz argued that Palestine is trying to destroy Israel and that Israel fights back only in self-defense.

Horowitz criticized groups like the Muslim Students Association, linking them to various terrorist groups. He also compared Muslims to Nazis. “There are good Muslims and there are bad Muslims,” he said. “But there were good Germans too, and in the end they didn’t make a damn difference.”

Daily Tar Heel, 14 March 2012

See also “UNC Hillel won’t stand for vilification of Muslim students”, Daily Tar Heel, 12 March 2012

Can anyone guess why?

America’s Problem with UNESCO – Pt. 1

The shameless Israeli ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, attempted to manipulate Christian reality to score points in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some well informed commenters responded to Oren with facts:

Israel Really Isn’t All That Friendly to Its Christians

(Wall Street Journal)

Regarding Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren’s “Israel and the Plight of Mideast Christians” (op-ed, March 9): No doubt, his piece will be compelling for many readers. Christians in North America are generally sympathetic to Christians who suffer elsewhere. More negatively, many respond well when blame for that suffering is placed on Muslims. The biggest problem with Mr. Oren’s analysis, however, is that it stands in sharp disagreement with the perspectives shared by those he presumably wants to protect. Mr. Oren seeks to speak for Palestinian Christians before he has spoken with them.

Palestinian Christians have produced major studies of Palestinian Christian demographic trends. Difficulties created by Israeli occupation policies far outweigh pressure from Muslim neighbors as reasons for Christian migration from the West Bank. According to a study by the Bethlehem-based Diyar Consortium, “most of those who choose to emigrate” are “aggravated by the lack of freedom and security.” At “the bottom of the scale,” they found, “are family reunification, fleeing religious extremism and finding a spouse.”

It is irresponsible for Amb. Oren to make political points among some segments of the U.S. population by intentionally disregarding factors contributing to Palestinian Christian migration away from their homeland. By blaming their condition on Muslims alone, while ignoring the negative effects of Israeli occupation policies, including the debilitating economic effects of the separation barrier, Mr. Oren is using anti-Muslim sentiments among some Americans to hide the effects of Israeli policy. This cynical political rhetoric fuels extremism and does not promote peace.

The Rev. Robert O. Smith

Chicago

I am a Palestinian Christian, and the numbers and facts given by Mr. Oren are erroneous and misleading. With the creation of the state of Israel, 80% of Palestinian Christians were forced into exile. The number of Christians in Jerusalem dropped dramatically since the occupation of the city in 1967, and Palestinian Christians are denied access to Jerusalem. To pretend that their numbers greatly increased contradicts all statistics, including Israeli statistics. Allowing “holiday access to Jerusalem’s churches to Christians from both the West Bank and Gaza” is denying free access, and those permits are given selectively, in small numbers and revoked often with the “closure” of the occupied territories. Pretending to defend the interests of the Christians contradicts facts on the ground, where Christians suffer the same consequences of military occupation as all Palestinians. Most of the land belonging to Christians in Bethlehem is being confiscated with the building of the separation wall. Is that the “respect and appreciation” the Christian community receives from the Jewish state?

Fr. Jamal Khader, D.D.

Dean of the Faculty of Arts

Bethlehem University

Bethlehem

I am one of those Palestinian Christians that Mr. Oren refers to, who live inside Israel. At no time in my life have I ever felt the “respect and appreciation” by the Jewish state which Mr. Oren so glowingly refers to in his last paragraph. Israel’s Christian minority is marginalized in much the same manner as its Muslim one, or at best, quietly tolerated. We suffer the same discrimination when we try to find a job, when we go to hospitals, when we apply for bank loans and when we get on the bus. In my daily dealings with the state, all I have felt is rudeness and overt contempt.

Fida Jiryis

Fassuta, Israel

Amb. Michael Oren presents a distorted and inaccurate account of Christians in Palestine. He conveniently omits gross Israeli violations against the Palestinian Christian community, such as Israel’s revocation of residency rights to many whose birthplace was Jerusalem, or the fact that it restricts their right to worship in their holy sites by imposing an onerous permit system to access the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem or the baptism site on the River Jordan. Even family visitations between Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem are heavily restricted.

It doesn’t stop at that. Recently there has been a spate of attacks by Jewish extremists vandalizing Christian properties and spray-painting slogans denouncing Jesus and Mary and attacking Christianity.

Finally, Palestinian Christians are a vibrant component of Palestine’s social, cultural and religious fabric. Many of our most prominent figures in politics, academia and the arts are Christian. This is the case precisely because of a long history and deeply rooted culture of tolerance and integration in Palestine.

Ambassador Maen Rashid Areikat

General Delegation
of the PLO to the U.S.

Washington

Israeli settlers attack Palestinians daily

Something tells me the below numbers are very conservative:

Israel Fails To Rein In Jewish Extremists: Report

by JTA (Forward)

Israel is not doing enough to stop the large increase in attacks on Palestinians by Jewish extremists, according to an internal European Union report.

The report by the 22 heads of mission of EU countries’ ambassadors in Ramallah said there were 411 assaults in 2011, compared to 266 in 2010 and 132 in 2009, according to Euobserver.com, which saw the report. The Netherlands was the lone country that refused to endorse the report.

The attacks ranged from throwing stones to gunfire, and uprooting olive trees to burning mosques. Three Palestinians were reported dead and 183 injured by the attacks.

Eight Jewish settlers, including five members of the Fogel family, were killed and 37 injured.

The report said that a small “hard-core” group of Jewish settlers carried out the attacks, according to Euobserver. But the diplomats also called the settler attacks part of a broader Israeli campaign to get rid of the Palestinians, saying they “effectively force a withdrawal of the Palestinian population away from the vicinity of settlements, thereby increasing the scope for settlement expansion.”

The EU report said that more than 90 percent of complaints filed by Palestinians ended with no indictment.

Israel has set up a police task force to stop settler attacks and Israeli leaders have roundly condemned such attacks, an Israeli official told Euobserver. The EU report also acknowledged that Israeli soldiers helped prevent attacks during the Palestinian olive harvest last year.

How can you convert a mosque into an Islamic Culture Museum but then not mention “Islam” at all?

The battle for a mosque continues in Beer Shiva:

Who’s afraid of a Bedouin?

by Charlene Silverman (Electronic Intifada)

Last June, Israel’s Supreme Court reached a ruling that some saw as a compromise to a legal battle that had lasted nearly a decade.  Beer Sheva’s Big Mosque that has been closed to prayer since 1948 would be converted into a museum of Islamic culture.

The decision disappointed thousands of Muslim citizens who wished to re-open the Ottoman-built mosque as a place of worship, thereby fulfilling a gaping need: there is currently no public space for Muslims to worship in Beer Sheva.

This month the Big Mosque tried out its new mantle as a museum, but visitors will not find one mention of Islam. Instead passersby can see figurines wearing the military fatigues of the British and Israeli armies, and pictures of Mandate-era governmental buildings in an exhibit titled, “History of Be’er Sheva: From 1900 – 2011.”

According to an Adalah press release, “The building’s signs and pamphlets distributed at the entrance reveal that the Big Mosque has been turned into an architectural museum, recording construction in Beer el-Sabe from the British Mandate until today.”

Nuri al-Uqbi, the director of the Association for the Support and Protection of the Rights of the Bedouin in Israel, told Adalah:

“I went yesterday, on 5 March, on a trip to the Big Mosque, and I felt horrified and furious at this violation of the mosque’s sanctity. In the mosque there are plastic dolls and models wearing British and Israeli uniforms, some of them in shorts, among other exhibits that are irrelevant to Arab-Islamic culture or tradition.”

The Big Mosque was originally built in 1906, and was used accordingly until the Nakbah in 1948. From 1948 until 1953, the newly created State of Israel imposed military rule on its remaining Palestinian population, and used the building as a courthouse and prison. Since 1991, the mosque had been closed for public use of any kind and has subsequently fallen into disrepair.

In August 2002, Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, the Islamic Committee in the Naqab, and 23 Palestinian citizens of Israel from Beer Sheva petitioned the High Court of Justice to re-open the Big Mosque for prayer.

Arguing against the petition, the Beer Sheva municipality claimed that allowing worship in the mosque would disturb the peace, and argued it should be used as a “general museum” instead.

Justice Miriam Naor, who sided with Beer Sheva’s municipality, said a general museum for all religions and ethnic groups would promote “multiculturalism and coexistence rather than disrupting it.”

A city that refuses to grant its large Muslim population with any place to worship does not appear to care much for “multiculturalism.”

But why does the municipality fear the existence of a single mosque in Beer Sheva? Or an Islamic museum? Is it so insecure with its own identity in the “Jewish State” that it must deny the historical lineage that connects Muslims and Arabs to the land?

Israel consistently denies its Arab and Muslim population with equal rights in what appears to be an anxious effort to assert Jewish supremacy in a land it took by force.

It looks like Israel is once again displaying its neurosis to the world.

Adalah has submitted a pre-petition to the Attorney General, to immediately remove the current exhibition.

A Palestinian boy sits on rubble in an area that was destroyed during Israel's January 2009 Gaza offensive, in the Jebaliya refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip. Hatem Moussa / AP

“We must do everything to ensure they [the Palestinians] never do return … The old will die and the young will forget,” said David Ben-Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, in 1949.

The old are dying, the young are dying, but no one has forgotten.

Despite rabid anti-Arab, anti-Muslim Daniel Pipes’ wishful thinking, the Palestinians are not a “defeated people.” They  continue to demand their rights, and support for their cause is steadily growing worldwide. That trend will continue as it becomes increasingly difficult to obscure Israel’s rejectionist stance and continued illegal settlement building in the Occupied Territories.

The Arab Peace Initiative, proposed in 2002 and re-endorsed in 2007, offered full normalization with the entire Arab world in exchange for the two-state solution with the Palestinians. In 2003, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators proposed the Geneva Accord, which also offered Israel a comprehensive peace agreement, also based on the two-state solution enshrined in international law.

Israel rejected both peace proposals.

Last year, 1,600 confidential Palestinian records of negotiations with Israel from 1999 to 2010 were leaked to al-Jazeera. The Palestine Papers showed Palestinian negotiator’s shameless acquiescence to an unjust “peace” agreement that savaged Palestinian rights in favor of Israel.

Israel nevertheless rejected the settlement.

Last September, Palestinian leaders requested UN membership for a Palestinian state. The proposal is once again based on the two-state solution, but is opposed by both the US and Israel. If the Palestinians achieve recognition, the United States has vowed to veto the decision.

In the meantime, Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza Strip continue to be refugees in their own land, stubbornly refusing to appease Daniel Pipes and his ilk by dying off or disappearing.  Mr. Pipes doesn’t seem to grasp that refugees who remain unsettled remain refugees, a status which is inherited by their children, hence his hysterical predictions.

What solution does Pipes have in mind for solving the problem?  Stall the so-called “peace process” indefinitely, and ultimately, “population transfer” (ethnic cleansing) of the unwanted Palestinian population of “Greater Israel.”

The “problem” is the Palestinian peace offensive is gaining support, and that apparently has Pipes fuming and waxing paranoid.

The Haunting of Daniel Pipes by Poe’s “Tell Tale Heart”

by Franklin Lamb, Foreign Policy Journal

BEIRUT — Daniel Pipes, the anti-Arab Islamophobe, is reportedly spooked these days. “Actually he has become an almost terrified man”; so says a colleague at Pipes’ Islamophobic Middle East Forum (MEF) and the McCarthyesque Campus Watch (CW) organization.

MEF was founded by Pipes in 1986, and the witch hunting anti-Arab McCarthyesque Campus Watch in 2001. CW’s function is to hound and intimidate faculty and students at colleges who are critical of the Zionist occupation of Palestine. Pipes and CW create “dossiers” on professors, students and university administrations thought hostile to Israel. Under civic pressure from Americans who opposed his tactics and insisted on having their own names added to his personal “terrorist list,” Pipes withdrew his dossiers from the CW website, but he still circulates them to scores of “select and executive subscribers” and other hate groups in order to get the word out about academics and others who support Palestine or criticize Israel.

Pipes increasingly exposed racist views are carried by journals like the National Review as well as pro-Zionist Islamophobic internet outlets. In 1990, Pipes wrote in the National Review that:

Western societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene…. All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most.

Having briefly written anti-Muslim screeds for Rudy Giuliani’s failed White House quest in 2008, Pipes claims he liked the job and seeks to do the same for Mitt Romney (Pipes has labeled Mormonism “a cult”) or even Rick Santorum (Pipes has referred to Rick as “one of those kook dispensationalist Christians”). Daniel told a copy editor at the Washington Times (who edited his recent article noted below) that he would prefer to work for Newt Gingrich if he gets the nomination since they share the same views of Palestinians as “an invented people”.

The two also agree on moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem, increasing aid to Israel, and the evitable necessity of transferring most of the remaining Palestinians out of “Eretz Israel” in order to stop once and for all the demographic and existential threat and pressure for a one state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict which Pipes and Gingrich consider, if not reversed soon will lead to the collapse of Israel.

Pipes makes his fears plain to readers what has unnerved him in his recent 2012 Republican presidential candidates “application for a position as Middle East adviser”, which he launched in the Washington Times on February 21, but which was first presented in occupied Jerusalem at a recent MEF seminar.

Pipes chose the low hanging fruit of the underfunded and over stretched UNRWA to target Palestinian refugees and to promote himself and his thesis. But even from the sarcastic title of his article, “Eventually, All Humans Will Be Palestine Refugees!”, to his bizarre conclusions, Pipes demonstrates a preference for Arab bashing over truth. Pipes maintains that UNRWA has conspiratorially inflated the number of Palestinian refugees by including the children of the original nearly 800,000 (UNWRA uses a lower 750,000 figure) who were ethnically cleansed in 1948 (the “Nakba”, or “catastrophe”) and adding Palestinians ethnically cleansed in 1967. Both groups absolutely should be included on Palestinian refugee’s lists, since they are also victims of the original and continuing ethnic cleansing.

Pipes writes: “In contrast all other refugee populations have diminished in number as people ‘settle down’ or die.”

By Palestinians “settling down”, one guesses Pipes means sardine-canned into squalid refugee camps, while Jews from Brooklyn or anywhere else can live on their lands, move into new housing financed partly from US taxes, and enjoy swimming pools while nearby Palestinian orchards and crops are destroyed by drought, bulldozers, or psychotic settlers.

Pipes laments to Washington Times readers that the second thing that should have happened is that “almost all of the real 1948 refugees should have died by now” but for sure the last one will be dead in a few years. Instead, Pipes warns that rather than disappearing as they were supposed to, “the Palestine refugee population has dramatically grown over time.” Pipes, claiming to be a historian, calls this apparently unanticipated unwillingness of the Palestinian refugees to forget their country and the Nakba a “bizarre historical phenomenon.”

Considering his “application-article” title about all humans being Palestinian refugees, Pipes is well aware that many human rights organizations, when it comes to the right and responsibility to resist the Zionist occupation of Palestine and to liberate their stolen land and homes, we are indeed all Palestinians.

We are all Palestinians because all people of good will who seek justice and the full right of return for those who were ethnically cleansed during the 1948 Nakba identify with those brutally ethnically cleansed over the past 64 years.

Until Palestine is liberated and its refugees return, as Nelson Mandala has repeatedly instructed us, none of us is truly free. We are all Palestinians as we increasingly support international law’s rejection of any settlement or any colonist on any part of occupied Palestine.

What haunts Pipes also is Ben Gurion’s failed boast to fellow Zionist terrorists in Palestine during the Nakba. The Palestinian holocaust that saw the ethnic cleansing of 531 villages in Palestine by more than 62,000 well armed troops, many WWII veterans predictably decimated the approximately 2,500 Palestinian defenders scattered, approximately 25-30 per village across Palestine who were at a hopeless military disadvantage with largely Ottoman-era rusting rifles and very little ammunition.

Given the above noted reality, the Zionist leaders worked arduously so that roughly one-half of the villages and approximately 50% of the population would not be discovered by the west, and Ben Gurion’s words that “in any event, the old will die and the young will forget” were more than wishful thinking. Pipes and his associates in the “Israel-first” culture have realized that not only was Ben Gurion fundamentally mistaken, but also that the 19th Century Zionists fundamentally erred in their calculations and hasbara.

Pipes’ basis for panic appears straight out of Edgar Allen Poe’s Novel, “The Tell Tale Heart”, where Poe’s character committed a savage crime and then was haunted because the evidence of this crime could not be hidden. The victim’s heart kept beating louder and louder and would not stop informing the world of the crime. Try as he might, the evil perpetrator could not get the heart to stop proving the crime and it drove the criminal more deeply into suicidal insanity.

In some aspects, Poe’s telltale heart appears a microcosm of the 19th Century Zionist colonial crimes which continue to this day in Palestine. The current efforts being made by Israel-firsters like Pipes include keeping Palestinian refugees invisible. They were to be erased by now, but instead the global community, and younger generations are increasingly taking up their cause and joining the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) and other non-violent campaigns against their Zionist occupiers.

Pipes argues in his Washington Times article, “Were the Palestine refugee status a healthy one this infinite expansion would hardly matter. But the status has destructive implications for Israel which suffers from the ‘depredations’ of a category of persons whose lives are truncated and distorted by an impossible dream of return to their great-grandparents’ houses; and the ‘refugees’ themselves, whose status implies a culture of dependency, grievance, rage, and futility.” Pipes continues: “All other refugees from the World War II era (including my own parents ) have been long settled and the Palestine refugee status has already endured too long and needs to be narrowed down to actual refugees before it does further damage to Israel.”

Pipes and his ilk, who appear to tally on a daily basis the Nakba refugees and their families, are horrified that Palestinian victims have refused to die off or forget the Nakba crimes committed against their families while at the same time the global community is beginning to support the Palestinians right to return.

Even many American taxpayers, long intimidated by Zionist hasbara and fears of being labeled “anti-Semitic” or “self-hating Jews” but who have long opposed Israel’s occupation of the political power centers in Washington DC, are outing themselves. Increasingly they are calling publicly for their government to break with Israel and its intensely promoted and sometimes engineered US wars in the region, and bring our troops home, and  heal and repair America while reclaiming American values.

This last remaining 19th Century colonial enterprise, which brutally implanted Israel in the heart of Palestine, has created more than six million refugees, each of whom has the separate, personal, and inalienable right and responsibility to return home.

One remarkable quality of the Palestinian refugees which Pipes keeps from his readers is that in the main they, unlike the European colonists who continue to ethnically cleanse them from their homes, may be willing to share their lands with any Jew who will agree to live as equals in a democratic one person one-vote governed country without religious preferences or a foreign “chosen colonial people” imposing an Apartheid regime.

Franklin Lamb, a former Assistant Counsel of the US House Judiciary Committee at the US Congress and Professor of International Law at Northwestern College of Law in Oregon, earned his Law Degree at Boston University and his LLM, M.Phil, and PhD degrees at the London School of Economics.

Israeli settlers attack Palestinians daily

Revenge of the settlers

Nour Samaha (AlJazeera English)

Fadi Quran is little different from any other Palestinian living in the West Bank, where violence from Israeli settlers is part of daily life. Hailing from the town of Al-Bireh, less than one kilometre from the settlement of Psagot, the 23-year-old Master’s degree student has been forced to deal with attacks and harassment for years.

“Settler violence is a daily occurrence,” he told Al Jazeera. On one occasion, he was playing football with friends when they came under fire from settlers with machine guns. In another altercation, settlers threw stones at him while he was driving. Their guns discouraged him from stopping. “I’m telling you my story, but there are literally hundreds of thousands of other cases that are much worse.”

Last week, Quran was arrested after attending a non-violent protest in Hebron which demanded the re-opening of a street in the centre of the city. The Israeli army had made it a settler-only road 11 years previously, despite the presence of Palestinian families still living there.

Following a verbal dispute, Israeli soldiers pepper-sprayed him, beat him, arrested him, blindfolded him and took him to an interrogation centre at a nearby settlement. Once there, he discovered the arresting soldiers were actually from one of the area’s settlements.

“I asked where they were from and they told me: ‘Kiryat Arba’,” he said. “One of them then asked me if I knew Baruch Goldstein [an Israeli settler who, in 1994, opened fire inside a mosque in the West Bank, killing 29 and wounding over 125 others]. They said he was a hero and they would do the same thing.”

Quran was charged with attacking ten soldiers. In court a few days later, the judge stated there was no proof that Quran did not attack them. The hearing was postponed until the following day, by which point a video capturing the events leading up to Quran’s arrest had gone viral. After the video was presented to the judge (which clearly showed Quran had not attacked troops), he was released on bail.

Settler violence has been forcing people to significantly change their lives, Quran said: “There are communities who don’t use main roads because they are afraid they will be murdered. Many farmers can’t farm anymore because their lands are being burned or vandalised, so they have to find another job.”

A report published in January by the Washington-based Palestine Center revealed a 39 per cent increase in the number of settler attacks – from stone-throwing to arson and shootings – between 2010 and 2011.

Furthermore, in the five-year period between 2007 and 2011, the occupied West Bank has witnessed a 315 per cent increase in settler attacks – while, over the same period, there has been a 95 per cent decrease in Palestinian violence against Israeli settlements and settlers.

The report found ”over 90 per cent of all the Palestinian villages which have experienced multiple instances of Israeli settler violence are in areas which fall under Israeli security jurisdiction”.

The report revealed a geographical shift in violent acts; previously settler violence was concentrated in the southern West Bank city of Hebron and its environs. Over the past few years, the Nablus governorate, in the northern West Bank, has also been on the receiving end of a large proportion of the documented settler violence.

This shift to the north, “where rural villages are predominantly targets, suggested that settlers are exploiting unfettered access to isolated Palestinian villages to perpetrate violence more than ever before”.

‘Open hunting season’

“What we have here is a complete failure to enforce the law and uphold the obligations to protect Palestinians,” Yousef Mounayer, director of the Palestine Center, told Al Jazeera.

“The Israelis really need to uphold their own obligations, otherwise we will continue to see violence and it will be open hunting season for settlers to attack Palestinians.”

International law states that occupying powers have a duty to protect local populations, while maintaining security and ensuring public order.

Issa Amro, a Palestinian from Hebron who heads the Youth Against Settlements activist movement, was forced with his family to leave his home – now designated a “closed military area” – after years of attacks from settlers.

“Every time settlers attack a Palestinian house, they are escorted by the army who protect them,” he explained. “I have filed dozens of cases and complaints, and not one time has anyone gone to court.”

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), more than 90 per cent of monitored complaints filed by Palestinians have been closed without indictment.

“I have death threats against me, and I’ve been attacked many times by settlers,” said Amro. “[The settlers] say to me ‘I hope God erases your name’, and they say this to me in front of the army and the police, who stand by and do nothing.”

‘They are there to protect the settlers’

Ezra Nawi, an Israeli activist who has been working with Palestinians against settler violence for the past decade, said the Israeli military in the West Bank was complicit through inaction.

“Settlers attack Palestinians, but the army has orders preventing them from arresting or stopping them,” he said. “They are simply there to protect the settlers.”

Nawi is no stranger to settler violence, with his work frequently making him a target. He said the attacks “serve the state’s interests”.

“The violence scares the Palestinians into not moving around or using their land for farming and agriculture,” he said.

Further OCHA statistics also state approximately 10,000 Palestinian-owned trees were damaged or destroyed by settlers in 2011, while 139 Palestinians were displaced due to settler attacks.

The UN group also found that “80 communities with a combined population of nearly 250,000 Palestinians are vulnerable to settler violence, including 76,000 who are at high-risk”.

“Every day there are attacks by settlers,” said Amro. “What is new is that they have started burning mosques.”

Sarit Michaeli, spokesperson for B’Tselem, an Israeli group which documents violence in the West Bank, told Al Jazeera that increasing violence was a result of a lack of law enforcement.

“The Israeli authorities have an obligation under international law to protect both settlers and Palestinians,” she said. “While they fulfill their obligation to protect the settlers, with the Palestinians, we see a systematic failure to protect them from attacks.”

“It is worth noting that Palestinians who are arrested by the Israeli army are prosecuted and charged through the military court system, which is very low in terms of protection of their rights, while settlers, if they get arrested, are held and tried in the civilian court system, which offers greater protection of their rights,” she added.

‘It’s actually calmer now’

Yet not everyone agrees with the assertions made. David Ha’ivri, spokesperson for the settlement council covering the northern West Bank region, told Al Jazeera he felt the area “is over-exposed in the media in comparison to other areas in the world”.

“I’ve lived here for many years and we have experienced violence, but that is not the situation currently,” he said. “It is strange that someone is saying that there is an increase, while we’ve experienced a decrease in the violence. It’s actually calmer now than in the past.”

Dani Dayan, chairman of the Yesha Council, reiterated Ha’ivri’s assertion, saying the levels of violence had decreased in the past two years, and that media had a tendency to “inflate and exaggerate things like the price-tag attacks“.

“Life in Judea and Samaria [the Biblical term for the West Bank] is normal,” he told Al Jazeera. “I don’t think violence during the last year has been a crucial problem, not for Jews and not for Arabs.

“Let’s not forget that the numbers provided are actually the other way around,” he added. “There have been at least 12 settlers who were murdered by Arabs in the last 24 months.”

According to B’Tselem statistics 13 Israelis have been killed by Palestinians in the West Bank over the past two years, while four Palestinians were killed by Israeli civilians, and a further 22 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli army. In Gaza, 173 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military during the past two years.

Both Ha’ivri and Dayan state the Israeli authorities were doing what was required of them in terms of protecting civilians and arresting perpetrators.

“I don’t think there is less accountability, the state and the police are very serious about enforcing the law on both sides,” said Ha’ivri. “For example, there are individuals in some communities in Samaria who have been arrested, or banished from living in this area.”

“If the Arabs feel there is less accountability then they are not aware of the facts.”

While Dayan agreed the authorities were performing their duties, he acknowledged flaws in the judicial system.

“There are very few indictments, if at all, presented to the courts,” he said. “I do not have an explanation as to why there are so few indictments, and it is not my place to provide an explanation, but it does create problems, leading some to believe one side has a sense of immunity and can get off without punishment.”

“I do know the government and police have a high interest in the public opinion, so I don’t think they lack the motivation,” said Dayan. “It’s not a question of leniency, but maybe one of capability.”

‘They want Palestine’

The analysis of the Palestine Center’s Mounayer focused on causes of settler violence and whether it was responsorial (a reaction to either Palestinian violence and/or Israeli government actions), or structural (a product of demographics and security arrangements).

“What we found actually is that instances of Palestinian violence trigger a decrease in settler violence,” said Mounayer. “Palestinian violence tends to receive an official response from the Israeli army, so in these instances the settlers don’t intervene.

“We also found that some of it is motivated by Israeli government actions, but … it doesn’t necessarily have to be provoked by anything. As settlers can get away with it at any given time, they will continue.

“The message the settlers are receiving is that ‘this is okay, and the state is not going to stop them’.”

B’Tselem’s Michaeli, however, was keen to emphasise that violence was not something the majority of the settler community participated in. “The mainstream leaders in settler politics have denounced these attacks,” she said, adding that settler violence and clashes with local Palestinians dated back to the 1970s.

“Having said that, the settlement community as a whole in an occupied area is violent,” she said, referring to the illegal nature of the expanding settlements in the West Bank, frequently condemned by the international community.

Ha’ivri said that in most cases, when there is violence, it happens as a response to attacks on settlers. “I don’t think it happens on a daily basis. All acts of violence that have occurred are isolated on both sides,” he said. “I don’t think either side is going out and actively looking for targets.”

For Israeli activist Nawi, the motivations of settlers are much more straightforward.

“Most of the settlers are motivated by religious ideas; that the Arabs are unwelcome people and they need to leave,” he said. “It is not an argument you can reason with.”

“They want Palestine.”

Follow Nour Samaha on Twitter: @samahanour

A graffiti depicting a way toward peace on the wall in Bethlehem on the edge of the West Bank shows hope and a wish for reconciliation. Image: Delayed Gratification Flickr

Undividing the Muslim Jewish experience by ignoring difference

by Dr. Ms. Mehnaz Afridi - Women’s News Network

(WNN/CGN): NY, NEW YORK: As I listen to sound bites of news, a swarm of words sting me: Iran, Israel, nuclear, Palestine-Israel at a standstill, Muslims kill Jews, and Jews kill Muslims. As a Muslim woman who teaches classes about the Holocaust at a Catholic college, I am constantly frustrated by the media coverage of the Middle East which overwhelmingly serves to highlight and entrench national and religious tensions, prejudice and conflict.

A recently-aired documentary by filmmaker Karen Ghitis, on Al Jazeera, was an extremely heartening exception to the rule. The film, Jerusalem SOS, showed Jews and Muslims saving each other’s lives.

The documentary, which aired last month, portrayed Arabs wearing orange vests printed with the red Star of David teamed up with haredi (or ultra-Orthodox) Jews with side curls, black skullcaps and tzitziot (knotted ritual fringes on their garments). And both groups have only praise for each other. Working as volunteer paramedics for the Orthodox Jewish organisation United Hatzalah (UH), these Jews and Muslims are taking note of the most important aspects of their faiths: preserving human lives and justice.

I was reminded of the Qur’anic injunction that states that “on that account We ordained for the Children of Isra`il that if any one slew a person … it would be as if he slew the whole humanity: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the whole humanity” (5:32).

Likewise, the Talmud (a repository of the ancient Jewish oral law and wisdom) states, “whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.” (Babylonian Talmud, 22a).

In the documentary the UH-trained Palestinian paramedics note that there are often delays in ambulances reaching the sick and wounded in East Jerusalem because Israeli ambulances are not permitted to enter Palestinian neighbourhoods without being accompanied by a police or military escort. Moreover, some of the homes have no addresses. Because the UH paramedics know the area well and drive ambucycles (ambulances on motorcycles), they are the first to arrive at the scene.

The film shows the rescue team transcending physical and political borders in order to save lives. Members of both faiths help each other provide for their communities on their respective holy days: Muslims come to the rescue of Jews on the Jewish Sabbath, and Jews help Muslims in emergencies on Fridays, as well as during Ramadan.

Eli Be’er, the founder of UH, was quoted in the Jerusalem Post as saying: “Jews and Muslims do not oppose working together, despite the invisible boundaries and suspicions that separate their communities. In the beginning, I met a few who were surprised about working together, but after they saw that they are great people and really professional, they all like it.”

These Muslim and Jewish paramedics have embraced the spiritual richness of their faiths and ignored the superficial boundaries of difference. Media outlets should try and take a cue from their story, and focus more attention on hope and cooperation.

Another heartening interfaith story from some months ago comes to mind. On 5 June, ABC News reported that “One Israeli man dying of a failing heart learned today that he would live, thanks to a Palestinian family who donated the heart of one of its members slain in the escalating violence wracking Israel.”

The Israeli who received the heart commented on how their hearts were the same, and ultimately they were the same inside.

Even though the rancour of negative media surrounds us, it is important to acknowledge that grassroots initiatives by organisations like UH, or the personal initiative of the Palestinian family who donated a loved one’s heart, are the key to building understanding between Jews and Muslims.

It is therefore crucial that Jews and Muslims tune into the many positive stories of life and death, faith and justice that occur on a daily basis on the ground.

I am always in search of such heartfelt stories that illuminate the commonalities of our faiths and demonstrate social justice. In the three monotheistic religions we are commanded not to bear false witness. After all, we are all children of God and it is through our actions and perseverance that we affirm our shared values and commitments to one another – irrespective of religious differences.

***************************************

Witness: Jerusalem SOS

If these revelers of the death of children were Palestinian or Muslim you can rest assured that Islam would be blamed!

If one were to employ the cynical and faulty methodology of Islamophobes one could easily find verses in the Bible justifying their happiness with the tragic deaths of the Palestinian Children, “happy is he who dashes children on the stones.”

Israelis celebrate death of Palestinian children killed in accident

(Al-Akhbar English)

Ten Palestinian children were killed and at least 20 were wounded on Thursday morning after an Israeli truck carrying a fuel tank crashed into the school bus transporting the kindergarten children near the Qalandia checkpoint in Ramallah.

Israelis on Facebook were celebrating the deaths of the Palestinian children, writing derogatory statements on a wall of a news post regarding the accident.

The bus carrying the children collided with the truck at an intersection in Jaba’a, overturned, and caught on fire.

The children immediately died, while a further eight remain in a critical condition, according to medical officials with the Palestinian Red Cross.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has declared three days of mourning.

Ramallah-based journalist Diana Alzeer said the collision was likely an accident due to wet weather, and not politically motivated.

In Bethlehem, a 15-year-old boy died this morning after a truck skidded on a slippery road and ran the boy over.

A statement released by the police said they have opened an investigation and confirmed that the boy died on the spot. Emergency crews arrived to the scene and transferred the boy’s body to a hospital in Beit Jala.

The Israeli comments have gone viral on Twitter, shocking users into disbelief at the level of racism and hatred directed towards the deceased Palestinian children.

Israel maintains a military occupation of the West Bank and Jerusalem, imposing harsh restrictions on indigenous Palestinians while providing privileges to illegal Jewish settlers.

Palestinians are frequently attacked and harassed by settlers as well as the Israeli military, often with impunity.

(Al-Akhbar, Wafa)

Update: (H/T: Dan15) It must be pointed out that many Jews and Israelis were disgusted by the pro-death statements of their fellow Jews:

Inscription 'Muhammad is a pig' painted on a Jerusalem mosque, Dec. 14, 2011.

These attacks continue. When will it come to an end?

IDF soldier linked to ‘price tag’ attack in West Bank Palestinian village 

An Israel Defense Forces soldier is suspected of perpetrating a so-called “price tag” attack in a Palestinian West Bank village, Haaretz learned on Friday, following recently intercepted security camera footage.

The Golani Brigade soldier and resident of the Itamar settlement was arrested along with two young women after footage indicated the three vandalizing the Palestinian village of Luban al-Sharqiya near Nablus.

According to a preliminary investigation, the three are suspected of entering the West Bank village on 1:30 A.M. Tuesday, where they sprayed the caption “Muhammad is a pig” on one of the walls and sabotaged a construction materials shop.

Security camera footage provided by Israeli NGO B’Tselem shows one of the young women stabbing sacks of building material piled up near the shop.

Later, a confrontation ensued between the three and local residents who woke up following the ruckus, during which the IDF soldier threatened the Palestinians with his rifle, causing them to flee the scene.

Suspects linked to the case were arrested on Thursday, with their arrest remanded until Monday.

The solder admitted to the act and is scheduled to be detained until Monday.

In addition, Orien Nizri from Jerusalem, known for her West Bank activism, and Sarah Goldberg from the settlement of Tapuach were arrested over suspicion that they were the young women in the car.

The young women are to be detained until Tuesday following a remand hearing in a Jerusalem magistrate’s court.

Haaretz, 10 February 2012

Yehuda Bauer

An important insight into Israeli society.

Yehuda Bauer: Israel’s genocidal nationalists

(AlJazeera English)

If Muslims were attacking synagogues or churches at this rate, we would not hear the end of it from right-wing nuts like Spencer and Geller.

Another ‘price tag’ attack in West Bank

Three cars were torched and a mosque wall was spray painted with the sentence “price tag Gal Arye Yosef” in the village of Dir Istiya near Ariel in the early hours of Wednesday morning. The sentence refers to the name of an illegal outpost that was evacuated in the last few days.

The head of the Dir Istiya local council, Nazmi Salaman, told Ynet that at 1:40 am residents noticed a car with three passengers and an Israeli license plate driving at high speed on the village’s main street towards the exit. “Immediately after that the residents noticed that three cars parked cars were on fire near the mosque and one of the fences that surround the mosque had the ‘price tag’ graffiti.”

Salaman added that at first the residents called the Palestinian DCO to report the incident, later Israeli police along with IDF troops arrived due to the fact that Dir Istiya is in Area C. “This is a continuation of attacks against Palestinians and mosques in the West Bank,” he said.

He noted that this was the second time that village property was vandalized. “The first time was in September when the Palestinian Authority launched their UN bid, and then settlers came and unsuccessfully tried to set the mosque on fire.”

Ynetnews, 11 January 2012

300 Ultra Orthodox Clash with Police Over Sign

Ultra-Orthodox, Israel Police clash in Beit Shemesh; officer wounded

(Haaretz)

A police officer was wounded as clashes erupted between ultra-Orthodox Jews and Israel police on Monday in two separate neighborhoods in Beit Shemesh.
Two residents were also arrested in the clashes.

Approximately 300 ultra-Orthodox Jews began chasing police officers, hurled rocks at them, and burned trashcans after police were called to remove a sign on a main street that orders the separation of men and women in the neighborhood. The sign has been removed and re-instated several times over the past two days.

Confrontations also occurred in another of the city’s neighborhood after a Channel 10 news crew attempted to film a news piece in the neighborhood. The crew was surrounded by ultra-Orthodox residents who began harassing the crew, who immediately called for police reinforcement.

Officers arrived on the scene, and clashed with residents who laid on the ground in order to protect those which the police sought to apprehend for questioning.

On Sunday, a Channel 2 news team was attacked and beaten by 200 ultra-Orthodox men at the same location on the street where the sign that was removed had been hanging.

After the assault on the Channel 2 news team earlier Sunday, one resident living nearby said that the sign in question has existed for six years already. He added that it does not order women not pass in the street, but to abstain from gathering on the sidewalk.

Hate slogans sprayed on mosque near Hebron

Attackers sprayed a West Bank mosque with anti-Islamic and pro-settler graffiti on Monday, a Palestinian official said, in an assault that bore the hallmarks of another raid by Jewish extremists.

The mayor of Bani Naim south of Hebron said that slogans in Hebrew sprayed on walls surrounding the village’s Sahaba mosque included “curses against the Prophet Mohammed” as well as “price tag” and “Yitzhar youth,” a reference to a hardline settlement and nearby outpost in the northern West Bank.

Mayor Radwan Manasra said that the mosque was on the village’s southern edge, facing the settlement of Pnei Haver, about 3.5 kilometres (two miles) away.

It was the seventh suspected attack in as many days by ultra-nationalist Jews fighting government plans to dismantle wildcat settlement outposts by vandalising mainly Palestinian property, although they have recently struck at Israeli army bases and the homes and offices of leftwing Israelis.

It was the third mosque attack since Wednesday, one of which coincided with the demolition by troops of the Mitzpe Yitzhar outpost.

AFP, 19 December 2011

Arab-Israelis protest ‘mosque bill’

Hundreds of Arabs across Israel took to the streets Saturday to rally against attacks on mosques and the so-called ‘mosque bill,’ which aims to prohibit mosques from sounding public calls for prayer.

The protesters carried signs reading: “We won’t agree to silence the Muezzin”, “A democratic state doesn’t attack freedom of religion” and “Transfer state.” Demonstrators also chanted against the torching of mosques in Jerusalem and in the West Bank.

Dozens of demonstrators gathered in the Arab-Israeli towns of Umm al-Fahm and Shfaram, with more protestors joining in various other communities, including Baka al-Garbiyeh, Tira, Taiba, Sakhnin, Tarshiha, Nazareth, Rahat, Jaffa, Kabul and Jisr az-Zarqa.

One protester from Rahat, Jumah Zabarka, told Ynet: “The State of Israel didn’t prosecute those responsible for the ‘Price Tag’ operations. Torching mosques is an act of chutspa because it hurts the Arab residents in Israel and the Arab population across the world.”

He added that the reaction to the mosque torching was insignificant compared to the reactions after the settler attack on Colonel Ran Kahane at the Ephraim Brigade’s base in the West Bank. “The entire country spoke up and the prime minister harshly condemned the dangers. But if somebody hurts us – they’d rather not discuss it,” he said.

While discussing the ‘mosque bill’ Zabarka explained this is a very sensitive issue. “They want to humiliate us at any price. We’re sending out a message to the State that we’re not going to allow for a ‘second Nakba.’”

Knesset Member Jamal Zahalka (Balad) spoke blatantly about the issue at hand: “The torching of the mosques and the ‘mosque bill’ are part of a war declared against the Arab and Muslim population by the racists and settlers. The sound of the Muezzin, the church bells and the blowing of the shofar have always existed.”

Ynetnews, 17 December 2011

More price-tag operations.

Another mosque torched in West Bank

Vandals set fire to another mosque in the West Bank on Thursday and defaced it with Hebrew graffiti.

The governor of Ramallah, Laila Ghanam, said arsonists doused the mosque in the village of Burqa with gasoline, then set it afire. The Hebrew words for “war” and “Mitzpe Yitzhar” were painted in red on a wall, and the Israeli military said carpets and chairs were burned.

Mitzpe Yitzhar is an unauthorized Jewish settlement outpost in the West Bank where Israeli security forces demolished two structures early Thursday.

In recent years, settlers have attacked Palestinian and Israeli military targets in retaliation for Israeli government operations they see as overly sympathetic to Palestinians. The increasing frequency of the attacks, the sparse number of arrests and paucity of indictments have generated allegations that the Israeli government isn’t acting forcefully enough against extremists after two years of violence.

On Wednesday, following an assault on an Israeli military base, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved measures to clamp down on extremists, including giving soldiers the authority to make arrests and to ban extremists from contentious areas.

Associated Press, 15 December 2011

What if a Muslim leader said that the Israelis are “invented” people? It would be cause to saber rattle against the said nation or drop bombs on them.

Gingrich calls Palestinians ‘invented’ people

(AlJazeera)

Republican White House hopeful Newt Gingrich has stirred controversy by calling the Palestinians an “invented” people who could have chosen to live elsewhere.

The former House of Representatives speaker, who is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for the 2012 presidential race, made the remarks in an interview with the US Jewish Channel broadcaster released on Friday.

Asked whether he considers himself a Zionist, he answered: “I believe that the Jewish people have the right to a state … Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire” until the early 20th century,

“I think that we’ve had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs, and who were historically part of the Arab
community.

“And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and it’s tragic.”

Most historians mark the start of Palestinian Arab nationalist sentiment in 1834, when Arab residents of the Palestinian region revolted against Ottoman rule.

Israel, founded amid the 1948 Arab-Israel war, took shape along the lines of a 1947 UN plan for ethnic partition of the
then-British ruled territory of Palestine which Arabs rejected.

More than 700,000 Palestinians were forced from their lands by Zionist armed groups in 1948, in an episode Palestinians refer to as the Nakba or “catastrophe”.

‘Irrational hostility’

Gingrich’s comments drew a swift rebuke from a spokesman for the American Task Force on Palestine, Hussein Ibish, who said: “There was no Israel and no such thing as an “Israeli people” before 1948.

“So the idea that Palestinians are ‘an invented people’ while Israelis somehow are not is historically indefensible and inaccurate.

“Such statements seem to merely reflect deep historical ignorance and an irrational hostility towards Palestinian identity and nationalism.”

Sabri Saidam, adviser to the Palestinian president, told Al Jazeera, “This is a manifestation of extreme racism and this is a reflection of where America stands sad, when Palestinians don’t get their rights…this is sad and America should respond with a firm reaction to such comments that, if let go, more of which will come our way,”

“Let me ask Newt Gingrich if he would ever entertain the thought of addressing Indian Americans by saying that they never existed, that they were the invention of a separate nation, would that be tolerated?”

“Let’s also reverse the statement; let’s put ourselves in “the shoe of Jews who are listening now. Would they ever accept such statements being made about them?”

Saidam said, “I think it’s time that America rejects such statements and closes the door to such horrendous and unacceptable statements.”

Gingrich also sharply criticised US President Barack Obama’s approach to Middle East diplomacy, saying that it was ”so out of touch with reality that it would be like taking your child to the zoo and explaining that a lion was a bunny rabbit.”

He said Obama’s effort to treat the Palestinians the same as the Israelis is actually “favouring the terrorists”.

“If I’m even-handed between a civilian democracy that obeys the rule of law and a group of terrorists that are firing missiles every day, that’s not even-handed, that’s favouring the terrorists,” he said.

He also said the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, share an “enormous desire to destroy Israel”.

The Palestinian Authority, which rules the occupied West Bank, formally recognises Israel’s right to exist.

President Mahmoud Abbas has long forsworn violence against Israel as a means to secure an independent state, pinning his hopes first on negotiations and more recently on a unilateral bid for statehood via the UN.

Gingrich, along with other Republican candidates, are seeking to attract Jewish in the US support by vowing to bolster Washington’s ties with Israel if elected.

He declared his world view was “pretty close” to that of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and vowed to take “a much more tougher-minded, and much more honest approach to the Middle East” if elected.

The cemetery dates from the 12th century and is the resting place of several Sufi saints (AFP, Ahmad Gharabli)

The “Price Tag” vandals attack again.

Early in October they vandalized a mosque by setting it on fire. And also, last year around the same time, Safed, a small town in Israel had grafiti that the “Price Tag” vandals are known for:

In a city park next to a college building on a recent afternoon, “Death to Arabs” was scrawled on a gatepost. The park is a hangout for the Arab students, who were scattered on benches during a break between classes.

Let us imagine if these “Price Tag” vandals were Muslims. They would be considered a terrorist group threatening the state of Israel’s existence. Spencer and Geller would make claims that they are here in America terrorizing our citizens daily.

This time around, the vandals thought to ante up their game and vandalize a Muslim cemetery instead.

Muslim graves vandalised at disputed Jerusalem site

JERUSALEM — Racist slogans were sprayed over gravestones in an old Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem, site of a dispute between Palestinians and supporters of a museum being built alongside, police said on Thursday.

An AFP photographer, who arrived at the cemetery in the city centre, said he saw graffiti on 15 tombs reading “price tag” and “death to the Arabs.”

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said that “the slogans were painted several weeks ago” and had not yet been erased by municipal authorities.

Hardline Jewish settlers have adopted what they call a “price tag” policy — a euphemism for revenge attacks against Palestinians and their property following Israeli government measures against settlements.

In recent months, the scope of such attacks has broadened, with vandals targeting Israeli army vehicles, mosques and cemeteries inside Israel and Israeli anti-settlement activists.

On Wednesday, police said they had arrested a suspect in a graffiti attack and bomb hoax at the Jerusalem offices of Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now on Sunday, in which a wall was daubed with the words “price tag”.

In the Jerusalem cemetery dispute, the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre, a Jewish human rights group, is building what is termed a “Museum of Tolerance” alongside the disused graveyard.

The project has sparked controversy because it is being built on land belonging to the Ma’man Allah cemetery, commonly called Mamilla, which dates from the 12th century and is the resting place of several Sufi saints.

Descendants of those interred in the west Jerusalem cemetery say it also houses the remains of soldiers and officials of legendary Muslim ruler Saladin.

Manis Friedman

The article below is from 2009, but it goes well with Danios’ series on how “Jewish Law” can be interpreted by some in a bellicose and genocidal manner. Can one imagine if the below were said by a mainstream Muslim scholar? All hell would break loose. (hat tip: DE)

Popular Rabbi’s Comments on Treatment of Arabs Show a Different Side of Chabad

By Nathaniel Popper (Forward.com)

Like the best Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis, Manis Friedman has won the hearts of many unaffiliated Jews with his charismatic talks about love and God; it was Friedman who helped lead Bob Dylan into a relationship with Chabad.

But Friedman, who today travels the country as a Chabad speaker, showed a less warm and cuddly side when he was asked how he thinks Jews should treat their Arab neighbors.

“The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle),” Friedman wrote in response to the question posed by Moment Magazine for its “Ask the Rabbis” feature.

Friedman argued that if Israel followed this wisdom, there would be “no civilian casualties, no children in the line of fire, no false sense of righteousness, in fact, no war.”

“I don’t believe in Western morality,” he wrote. “Living by Torah values will make us a light unto the nations who suffer defeat because of a disastrous morality of human invention.”

Friedman’s use of phrasing that might seem more familiar coming from an Islamic extremist has generated a swift backlash. The editor of Moment, Nadine Epstein, said that since the piece was printed in the current issue they “have received many letters and e-mails in response to Rabbi Friedman’s comments — and almost none of them have been positive.”

Friedman quickly went into damage control. He released a statement to the Forward, through a Chabad spokesman, saying that his answer in Moment was “misleading” and that he does believe that “any neighbor of the Jewish people should be treated, as the Torah commands us, with respect and compassion.”

But Friedman’s words have generated a debate about whether there is a darker side to the cheery face that the Chabad-Lubavitch movement shows to the world in its friendly outreach to unaffiliated Jews. Mordecai Specktor, editor of the Jewish community newspaper in Friedman’s hometown, St. Paul. Minn., said: “The public face of Lubavitch is educational programs and promoting Yiddishkeit. But I do often hear this hard line that Friedman expresses here.”

“He sets things out in pretty stark terms, but I think this is what Lubavitchers believe, more or less,” said Specktor, who is also the publisher of the American Jewish World. “They are not about loving the Arabs or a two-state solution or any of that stuff. They are fundamentalists. They are our fundamentalists.” Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League and a regular critic of Arab extremists, said that in the Jewish community, “We are not immune to having these views. There are people in our community who have these bigoted, racist views.”

But, Foxman warned, Friedman’s views are not reflective of the Chabad rabbis he knows. “I am not shocked that there would be a rabbi who would have these views,” Foxman said, “but I am shocked that Moment would give up all editorial discretion and good sense to publish this as representative of Chabad.”

A few days after anger about the comment surfaced, Chabad headquarters released a statement saying that, “we vehemently disagree with any sentiment suggesting that Judaism allows for the wanton destruction of civilian life, even when at war.”

The statement added: “In keeping with Jewish law, it is the unequivocal position of Chabad-Lubavitch that all human life is G-d given, precious, and must be treated with respect, dignity and compassion.”

In Moment, Friedman’s comment is listed as the Chabad response to the question “How Should Jews Treat Their Arab Neighbors?” after a number of answers from rabbis representing other Jewish streams, most of which state a conciliatory attitude toward Arabs.

Epstein said that Friedman was “brave” for stating his views so clearly.

“The American Jewish community doesn’t have the chance to hear opinions like this,” Epstein said, “not because they are rare, but because we don’t often ask Chabad and other similar groups what they think.”

The Chabad movement is generally known for its hawkish policies toward the Palestinians; the Chabad Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, rejected peace accords with the Palestinians. Rabbi Moshe Feller, the top Chabad rabbi in Minnesota, said that the rebbe taught that it is not a mitvah to kill, but that Jews do have an obligation to act in self-defense.

“Jews as a whole, they try to save the lives of others,” Feller told the Forward, “but if it’s to save our lives, then we have to do what we have to do. It’s a last resort.”

Friedman is not a fringe rabbi within the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. He was the English translator for the Chabad Rebbe, and at the rebbe’s urging, he founded Beis Chana, a network of camps and schools for Jewish women. Friedman is also a popular speaker and writer on issues of love and relationships. His first book, “Doesn’t Anyone Blush Anymore?” was promoted with a quote from Bob Dylan, who Friedman brought to meet the rebbe.

On his blog and Facebook page, Friedman’s emphasis is on his sympathetic, caring side. It was this reputation that made the comment in Moment so surprising to Steve Hunegs, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council: Minnesota and the Dakotas.

“Rabbi Friedman is a best-selling author who addresses some of the most sensitive issues of the time,” Hunegs said. “I intend to call him and talk to him about this.”

But Shmarya Rosenberg, a blogger and critic of Chabad who lives a few blocks from Friedman in Minnesota, says that the comment in Moment is not an aberration from his experiences with Friedman and many other Chabad rabbis.

“What he’s saying is the standard normal view of a Chabadnik,” Rosenberg said. “They just don’t say it in public.”

For his part, Friedman was quick to modify the statement that he wrote in Moment. He told the Forward that the line about killing women and children should have been in quotes; he said it is a line from the Torah, though he declined to specify from which part. Friedman also said that he was not advocating for Israel to actually kill women and children. Instead, he said, he believed that Israel should publicly say that it is willing to do these things in order to scare Palestinians and prevent war.

“If we took this policy, no one would be killed — because there would be no war,” Friedman said. “The same is true of the United States.”

Friedman did acknowledge, however, that in self-defense, the behavior he talked about would be permissible.

“If your children are threatened, you do whatever it takes — and you don’t have to apologize,” he said.

Friedman argued that he is different from Arab terrorists who have used similar language about killing Jewish civilians.

“When they say it, it’s genocide, not self-defense,” Friedman said. “With them, it’s a religious belief — they need to rid the area of us. We’re not saying that.”

Feller, the Chabad leader in Minnesota, said that the way Friedman had chosen to express himself was “radical.”

“I love him,” Feller said. “I brought him out here — he’s magnificent. He’s brought thousands back to Torah mitzvah. But he shoots from the hip sometimes.”

Contact Nathaniel Popper at popper@forward.com.

Mosque Set Alight by Jewish Extremists

Can you imagine the reaction if Muslims had done this to a Synagogue or a Church?

Israeli ‘Price Tag’ Vandals Set Mosque Alight

A mosque in northern Israel has been set on fire by suspected Jewish extremists in the latest of a series of incidents known as “price tag” attacks.

The interior of the mosque in the Upper Galilee was destroyed along with many holy books. It’s thought the arsonists arrived in the early hours of Monday morning.

Graffiti including the slogan “price tag” was spray-painted on walls.

The hollow words of Netanyahu are even more pronounced when we realize his government is in fact funding extremist radical Yeshivas (Jewish religious colleges) in West Bank settlements.

Can you imagine if this were a Muslim country? We wouldn’t hear the end of “state funded terrorism.” (hat tip: T.H. and MrIslamAnswersBack)

Israeli agency urges funding to be cut from extremist settler college

by Donald MacIntyre (The Independent)

Israel’s domestic intelligence agency is urging the government to stop funding a religious college in a Jewish West Bank settlement after warning that its senior rabbis are encouraging students to attack Palestinians.

The intelligence agency, Shin Bet, pressed a month ago for an immediate block on the annual £226,000 grant for the religious college, or yeshiva, in the notoriously extreme settlement of Yitzhar, near Nablus. The Education Ministry has reportedly yet to take a decision despite two meetings with Shin Bet.

Residents of the nearby Palestinian village of Asira El Qbilya say the masked, club-wielding teenage settlers who invaded it last week came from Yitzhar.

The Israeli military disclosed last month that it had issued restraining orders on 12 settlers from the Yitzhar area for “violent and clandestine activity” targeting Palestinians in the West Bank, including endangering lives by “igniting… mosques, vehicles and buildings”.

The head of the Od Yosef Hai yeshiva complex in the settlement, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, has been filmed accompanying students who threw stones at a Palestinian village. Rabbi Shapira is the author of The King’s Torah, a book which suggests that Jewish law on occasion permits the killing of non-Jews.

There was heightened tension in parts of the West Bank last week as Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, submitted his application for UN recognition. A Palestinian was shot dead in Qusra, also near Nablus, by Israeli troops after confronting villagers who gathered in response to a settler invasion. A Jewish settler and his one-year-old son were killed in a car crash near Hebron, which the police say was probably caused by Palestinians throwing stones.

Meanwhile, the US joined Palestinian leaders in condemning Israeli government approval yesterday for the construction of 1,100 new homes in the Jerusalem area settlement of Gilo. It came only days after the international quartet of the US, EU, Russia and the UN urged the parties to “refrain from provocative actions” that might jeopardise future negotiations.

A US State Department official said Washington saw the “continued expansion of settlements” as “corrosive not only to peace efforts and a two-state solution, but to Israel’s future itself”.

We have been covering the story about “The King’s Torah” for quite some time now, it is quite popular amongst the religious right in Israel. Can you imagine if texts such as this were found in an Islamic book called the “The Caliph’s Sharia’”?,

I. A gentile must not kill his friend, and if he has killed, he must die.

II. The prohibition “thou shalt not commit murder” refers to a Jew who kills another Jew.

III. A Jew who kills a gentile is not required to die.

Replace “gentile” with “kafir” and Jew with “Muslim,” and imagine the reaction from the Islamophobesphere.

Inside Torat Hamelech, the Jewish extremist terror tract endorsed by state-employed rabbis

by Max Blumenthal

Last year, I reported on a convention of top Israeli rabbis who gathered to defend the publication of Torat Hamelech, a book that relied on rabbinical sources to justify the killing of gentiles, including infants “if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us.” The most prominent rabbinical endorsers, Kiryat Arba’s chief rabbi Dov Lior and Yaakov Yosef, had dismissed police summons at the time, insisting that man’s law could not touch the halakha. A year later, in late June, the Israeli police finally arrested Lior for his role in endorsing and promoting the book.

Riots broke out almost immediately in the wake of the arrest, with mobs of religious Zionists burning tires and attempting to storm the Israeli Supreme Court compound. Fearing more riots and with sales of Torat Hamelech surging, the police handled Rabbi Yosef with kid gloves, requesting he come in for questioning but not arresting him. In the end, the state neglected to remove Lior, Yosef, or any other state-employed rabbi from his position for endorsing Torat Hamelech.

Why is Torat Hamelech so explosive? Yuval Dror, an Israeli journalist and academic, excerpted some of the book’s most incendiary passages. What appeared was Jewish exclusivism in its most extreme form, with non-Jews deemed permissible to kill, or Rodef, for the most inconsequential of wartime acts, including providing moral support to gentile armies. The book is a virtual manual for Jewish extremist terror designed to justify the mass slaughter of civilians. And in that respect, it is not entirely different from the Israeli military’s Dahiya Doctrine, or Asa Kasher and Amos Yadlin’sconcept of “asymmetrical warfare.” The key difference seems to be the crude, almost childlike logic the book’s author, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, marshals to justify the killing of non-Jewish civilians.

Here are passages from Torat Hamelech, as excerpted by Dror and translated by Dena Bugel-Shunra:

II. Thou Shalt Not Commit Murder

Maimonides wrote in the Halachas of Murder, Chapter A, Halacha A:

He who kills one soul of Israel violates a prohibition, as it is said “thou shalt not commit murder, and if he committed murder maliciously, in front of witnesses, his death shall be by the sword…

It is therefore made explicit that the “thou shalt not commit murder” prohibition refers only to a Jew who kills a Jew, and not to a Jew who kills a gentile, even if that gentile is one of the righteous among the nations… we have derived that from the verse “thou shalt not commit murder”, one cannot learn that there is a prohibition on killing a gentile.

(Page 17-18)

VIII. Conclusion

I. A gentile must not kill his friend, and if he has killed, he must die.

II. The prohibition “thou shalt not commit murder” refers to a Jew who kills another Jew.

III. A Jew who kills a gentile is not required to die.

IV. The prohibition on a Jew killing a gentile derives from the fact that a gentile is not allowed to kill a gentile.

(Page 27)

I. A gentile is killed for one death, and with one judge

A gentile who violates one of the seven rules [of Noah] must be killed, and he is killed based on the word of one witness and with one judge and with no warning.

II. A witness becomes a judge

For the Sons of Noah [gentiles] the witness can himself be a judge. This mean: if one person saw the other committing a crime – he can judge him and kill him for this, as he is the witness and he is the judge… Moses [moshe rabbenu] saw the Egyptian hitting a man of Israel, and killed him for that. So there Moses is the witness and is the judge, and this does not delay the carrying out of the law upon the Egyptian.

(Pp. 49-50)

What transpires from these matters is that when you judge a gentile for crimes that he has committed – you must also consider the question of whether he has repented, and if he has – he must not be killed… moreover: it is better that the gentile repent than that we kill him. If we come upon a gentile who does not abide by the Seven Laws [of Noah], and the importance of abiding by them can be explain to him, so he will repent – we would prefer to choose that path, and not judge an kill him.

(page 70)

It is explained in Yerushalmi [codex] that when a [child of] Israel [a Jew] is in danger of his life, as people tell him ‘kill this particular gentile or you will be killed’ – is permitted to kill the gentile to save himself… and the [interpreters of the law] Rashi and Maimonides say that the law of requiring to die rather than commit the crime is only valid in case of a Jew against another Jew, not in the case of a Jew against a stranger living among them… It is clear from these statements that when the choice is between losing the life of a stranger living among them and losing the life of a child of Israel [a Jew] – the simple decision is to permit [the killing].

(Pp. 157-158)

When the question is of a life of a gentile weighed against the life of a child of Israel [Jew], the initial proposal returns, which is that a Jew can violate  law in order to save himself, as what is at stake is the soul [life] of a Jew – which supersedes the entire Torah [code of law] - in contrast with the life of a stranger living among us, which does not permit any Torah prohibition to be superseded.

(page 162)

To save the life of a gentile, one does not violate the Sabbath rules, and it is clear from this that his life is not like the value of the life of a child of Israel, so it may be used for the purpose of saving the life of a child of Israel.

(page 167)

An enemy soldier in the corps of intelligence, logistics, and so forth aids the army that fights against us. A soldier in the enemy’s medical corps is also considered a “rodef” [villain who is actively chasing a Jew], as without the medical corps the army will be weaker., and the medical corps also encourages and strengthens the fighters, and helps them kill us.

A civilian who supports fighters is also consider Rodef, and may be killed… anyone who helps the army of the evil people in any way, strengthens the murderers and is considered to be Rodef.

(page 184)

III. Support and encouragement

A civilian who encourages the war - gives the king and the soldiers the strength to continue with it. Therefore, every citizen in the kingdom that is against us, who encourages the warriors or expresses satisfaction about their actions, is considered Rodef and his killing is permissible. Also considered Rodef is any person who weakens our kingdom by speech and so forth.

(p. 185)

We are permitted to save ourselves from the Rodef people. It is not important who we start with, as long as we kill the Rodef people, and save ourselves from the danger they pose. And see for yourself: if you say that the fact that there are many of them brings up the question of whom to start with, and that that question is supposed to delay us from saving for ourselves - why it stands to reason: the existence of any one of them postpones the salivation, and this is the reason to treat each and every one as a complete Rodef, and to kill him, so he will not cause this ‘life-threatening’ question…

Whoever is in a situation where it is clear that he will chase and danger us in the future - it is not necessary to give it fine consideration as to whether at this moment, exactly, he is actively helping the chasing [harassment?] of us.

(Pp. 186-187)

X. People who were forced to partner with the enemy

We have dealt, so far, with gentiles whose evil means that there is a reason to kill them. We will now turn to discuss those who are not interested in war and object to it with all force…

We will start with a soldier, who is party to fighting against us, but is doing so only because he has been forced by threats to take part in the war.

If he was threatened with loss of money and such things - he is completely evil. There is no permission to take part in chasing and killing due to fear of loss of money, and if he does so -he is a Rodef in every definition thereof.

And if he was threatened that if he would not participate in the war, he would be killed - according to the MAHARAL [rabbi]… just as he is permitted to kill others - so, too, can others (even gentiles)kill him, so we will not die. And for this reason, according to the MAHARAL, it is simply evident that such a soldier may be killed.

And according to the Parashat Drachim [rabbi? Or possibly book of law?] - he must not participate in the murdering even if he must give his life due to this. And if he does so [participates] - he is evil and may be killed, like any other Rodef.

We will remind, again, that this discusses all types of participation in the war: a fighter, a support soldier, civilian assistance, or various types of encouragement and support.

(P. 196)

XVI. Infants

When discussing the killing of babies and children - why on the one hand, we see them as complete innocents, as they have no knowledge, and therefore are not to be sentenced for having violated the Seven Laws, and they are not to be ascribed evil intent. But on the other side, there is great fear of their actions when they grow up… in any event, we learn that there is an opinion that it is right to hurt infants if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation the damage will be directed specifically at them.

(Pp. 205-200)

IV. Killing the enemy like killing our own men

Inside Torat Hamelech, the Jewish extremist terror tract endorsed by state-employed rabbis

by Max Blumenthal

If the king is permitted to kill his own men for the purpose of war - that same opinion also holds with regard to people who belong to the evil kingdom. In a war of righteous people against evil people, we assume that the evil will eventually hurt us all, if we let it raise its head, and the people of the evil kingdom will also suffer from it.

We are, in fact, arguing to any person from the evil kingdom: if you belong to the evil king - you are liable to be killed for helping murderers; and if you do not help him - you should help us, and it is permissible to kill you as we kill our own people (as we are all in trouble together, and in such a situation it is permissible to kill the few in order to save the many.)

This theory also permits intentional hurting of babies and of innocent people, if this is necessary for the war against the evil people. For example: If hurting the children of an evil king will put great pressure on him that would prevent him from acting in an evil manner - they can be hurt (even without the theory that it is evident that they will be evil when they grow up.)

(P. 215)

VII. Revenge

One of the needs which exists, in the hurting of [Evil people?] is the revenge. In order to beat [win the war against] the evil people, we must act with them in a manner of revenge, as tit versus tat…

In other words, revenge is a necessary need in order to turn the evil-doing into something that does not pay off, and make righteousness grow stronger; and as great as the evil is - so is the greatness of the action needed against it.

(Pp. 216-217)

Sometimes, one does evil deeds that are meant to create a correct balance of fear, and a situation in which evil actions do not pay off… and in accordance with this calculus, the infants are not killed for their evil, but due to the fact that there is a general need of everyone to take revenge on the evil people, and the infants are the ones whose killing will satisfy this need; and they can also be viewed as the ones who are set aside from among a faction, as reality has chosen them to be the ones whose killing will save all of them [the others from that faction?] and prevent evildoing later on. (And it does indeed turn out that to this consideration, the consideration that we brought forth at the end of the prior chapter also definitely is added - which is, that they are in any event suspected of being evil when they grow up.)

Wild Celebrations as Rabbi Dov Lior is Released from Prison

Where do we even begin with this one? We did a story on the Rabbi’s who penned and supported the work, “The King’s Teachings,” in which all manner of immoral actions are allowed in the name of security. At the time and since, nearly the entire religious establishment of Israel has supported the Rabbis, even if some have not given their explicit endorsement.

Do we have to ask, what if they were Muslim?

(Hat tip: Tony)

There is more at Haaretz as well about the reaction from parliamentarians who are outraged at the arrest of Lior.

Rabbi’s Arrest Provokes New Friction Between Religion And Government In Israel

(Huffington Post)

JERUSALEM — The arrest of a prominent Israeli settler rabbi who endorsed a book sanctioning the killing of non-Jews under some conditions is sharpening the battle lines between some Jewish religious sages and the Israeli government.

After Rabbi Dov Lior, spiritual leader of the radical Kiryat Arba settlement in the West Bank, was detained and brought in for police questioning, hundreds of his followers, most of them teenagers, went on a rampage. Other rabbis fulminated against the idea that a rabbi could be arrested at all.

On the other side, secular Israelis complained that some rabbis in Israel think they are above the law.

Lior, a longtime symbol of religious and nationalist extremism, was brought in for questioning Monday after his car was stopped on a West Bank road. Lior, who was freed after a brief interrogation, accused officers of “Bolshevik” tactics.

Joining critics of his own government’s action, the Minister of Religious Affairs, Yaakov Margi, raged that the rabbi, who is in his late 70s, was “abducted on his way to Jerusalem like the lowest criminal.”

Lior was brought in Monday after ignoring a series of official police orders to report for interrogation.

His arrest angered supporters as a mark of disrespect for a venerated scholar.

Hundreds of disciples tried to block the road to the entrance to the city, snarling traffic at afternoon rush hour. Others tried to attack the Supreme Court. Hundreds besieged the home of a government official they thought was responsible for the arrest warrant.

The warrant had been pending for months in connection with a preface Lior wrote in support of a book, “The King’s Teachings.” The book quotes some religious sages as permitting, under certain conditions, the killing of non-Jews, including babies, “if there is a good chance they will grow up to be like their evil parents.”

Police wanted to question Lior over the possibility that his endorsement of the book was incitement to murder.

Backers accused authorities of assaulting Lior’s freedom of speech and complained that inflammatory statements by leftists against nationalist Israelis did not draw similar sanctions.

Critics of Lior and his camp saw a sign that some rabbis and their followers believe that secular law does not apply to them.

“Those who favor freedom of expression will of course find it difficult to accept as self evident the arrest of a person, any persona, for things that he said or wrote,” read an editorial in Wednesday’s Haaretz newspaper.

“But from the moment that the police decided to summon Rabbi Dov Lior to an investigation, he should have reported, even if he is firmly opposed to doing so, and taken advantage of every legitimate way of protesting against the claims against him,” Haaretz wrote, calling for Lior’s dismissal from his official, state-paid positions.

The Jerusalem Post wrote it was not clear that Lior committed a crime.

“He has, however, placed his rabbinic reputation behind a morally repugnant book” with “far-reaching and horrid implications, particularly in wartime settings,” the newspaper said.

Lior told reporters afterward that he ignored the police orders to report for questioning because he considered them illegitimate.

Although respected in the religious nationalist community, Lior’s teachings and commentaries have made him a polarizing figure in Israel for decades.

Following a shooting attack on a Jerusalem seminary in 2008, he ruled that Jewish law forbids employing and renting homes to Palestinians. He also praised Baruch Goldstein, the American immigrant doctor who massacred 29 Palestinians at a religious shrine in the West Bank city of Hebron in 1994.

Some rabbis have repudiated “The King’s Teachings,” which doesn’t explicitly mention Arabs or Palestinians.

On Wednesday, the Israel Hayom newspaper reported that a sequel to “The King’s Teachings” was in the works. Its author, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, said he has sold more than 2,000 additional copies of “The King’s Teachings” since Lior’s arrest.

Shapira was arrested briefly for questioning about the book last year. No one has been charged.

Another anti-Islam protest comes to Dearborn

Another protest over what organizers call “radical strains” of Islam is planned on Saturday in front of Dearborn City Hall.

The Order of the Dragon, a pro-Israeli group, is planning the 3 p.m. demonstration to call attention to the “implementation of Sharia” or Islamic law in some court rulings, said Frank Fiorello, the head of the group’s Michigan chapter.

“We have a lot of people worried about Sharia creeping into family court,” said Fiorello, a Marlette resident. “There are 23 different jurisdictions where Sharia is being implemented in family court.” Fiorello did not provide specifics, but said there are recent cases in Ann Arbor District Court.

Other groups participating in the rally include the American Defense League, ACT! For America and David Horowitz’s Freedom Center’s Palestinian Wall of Lies, Fiorello said.

Fiorello, a Detroit native, was scheduled to host controversial Florida Pastor Terry Jones’ protest in Dearborn on April 22 but Fiorello backed off his protest after meeting with Dearborn Mayor John O’Reilly and a member of an interfaith group.

Jones ended up protesting a week later after being ordered by a Dearborn district judge that he would have to post a peace bond if he wanted to protest outside the Islamic Center of America on Good Friday.

Fiorello also said he backed away from Jones after a difference of option about how the protest should be handled. ”We’re not wanting to be involved in shock tactics,” said Fiorello. “That is not our route.”

Jones, meanwhile, has planned to protest against “radical Islam” at the Arab American International Festival in Dearborn next month.

Detroit News, 25 May 2011

Netanyahu was applauded more than he was able to speak, in fact he was applauded more than any president has ever been.

Breakdown of Netanyahu’s Appearance in US Congress

Cenk Uygur breaks down Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s appearance in the U.S. Congress, Netanyahu’s speech and the reaction from our congress is discussed.

Bob Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman (Hebrew name Shabtai Zisel ben Avraham) to a Jewish family in Duluth, Minnesota, turned 70 years old yesterday.  His “protest songs” became classic anthems for many in the civil rights movement and beyond.

Songs such as The Times they are a Changin’ and Blowin’ in the Wind are part of our collective memory and have been played endlessly, having influenced mass culture across generations. Dylan’s songs are diverse: some criticize American politics such as With God on Our Side and Masters of War. Other songs deal with the narratives of injustice and racism, such as the one written about Medgar Evers (Only a Pawn in their Game) and Emmett Till (The Death of Emmett Till). Dylan continued delving into these topics well into the 70′s when he wrote the hit song Hurricane for Rubin Carter.

Dylan also saw Martin Luther King, Jr. during the March on Washington in 1963 and performed for the crowd.

But why is this iconic figure being praised by bigots like Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller?

Dylan songs have always been filled with Judeo-Christian imagery that has both fascinated and captivated his audiences. But something nearly inexplicable happened in the 70′s to Dylan that explains the praise from such prominent Islamophobes:

after a visit to Israel in 1971, [Dylan] even pronounced the late far-right Rabbi Meir Kahane “a really sincere guy.”

Rabbi Meir Kahane and his radical, racist, and terroristic views–and his support for extreme Zionist groups–are well known and have been documented by LoonWatch.

DissidentVoice.org says of Dylan’s support for such groups:

Over the past couple decades, Dylan has become a supporter of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, which holds a firm Eretz Israel line regarding the ongoing occupation of the West Bank.

Dylan seems to think that Israel cannot be questioned about how many civilians it kills because God is on Israel’s side:

In 1983, twenty years after he sang, “you don’t count the dead” and “you never ask questions, when God’s on your side,” Dylan penned a song in response to the international outrage over the devastating Israeli assault on Lebanon in 1982, which took the lives of nearly 18,000 Lebanese civilians and wounded about 30,000 others.

Nobody can deny Dylan’s lyrical talent and I don’t think he is a bigot, but his support for Israeli extremism is certainly troubling. Certainly, Dylan does seem to be contradicting himself with regard to civil and human rights.  Or are Palestinians not to be included in the human struggle? Perhaps Dylan should heed the message contained in his own song, “The Times they are a Changin’”:

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’

Meanwhile, Dylan’s song Neighborhood Bully glorifies Israeli aggression and occupation, and for this reason was commemorated by Spencer on JihadWatch. Here are the lyrics:

Neighborhood Bully
by Bob Dylan
From the album Infidels

Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man
His enemies say he’s on their land
They got him outnumbered about a million to one
He got no place to escape to, no place to run
He’s the neighborhood bully

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive
He’s criticized and condemned for being alive
He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin
He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in
He’s the neighborhood bully

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land
He’s wandered the earth an exiled man
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn
He’s always on trial for just being born
He’s the neighborhood bully

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad
The bombs were meant for him. He was supposed to feel bad
He’s the neighborhood bully

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he’ll live by the rules that the world makes for him
’Cause there’s a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac
He’s the neighborhood bully

He got no allies to really speak of
What he gets he must pay for, he don’t get it out of love
He buys obsolete weapons and he won’t be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side
He’s the neighborhood bully

Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease
Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly. To hurt one they would weep
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep
He’s the neighborhood bully

Every empire that’s enslaved him is gone
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon
He’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand
In bed with nobody, under no one’s command
He’s the neighborhood bully

Now his holiest books have been trampled upon
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health
He’s the neighborhood bully

What’s anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin’, they say. He just likes to cause war
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed
He’s the neighborhood bully

What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers? Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill
Running out the clock, time standing still
Neighborhood bully

The song seems to be a favorite of illegal settlers these days as well:

In 2001, the Jerusalem Post described the song as “a favorite among Dylan-loving residents of the territories“.[7] Israeli singer Ariel Zilber covered “Neighborhood Bully” in 2005 in a version translated to Hebrew.[8]

Nelson Mandela has clearly labeled the Israeli occupation as an apartheid system, saying:

Palestinians are not struggling for a “state” but for freedom, liberation and equality, just like we were struggling for freedom in South Africa…

Apartheid is a crime against humanity. Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property. It has perpetuated a system of gross racial discrimination and inequality. It has systematically incarcerated and tortured thousands of Palestinians, contrary to the rules of international law. It has, in particular, waged a war against a civilian population, in particular children.

It remains to be seen if Dylan performs in Israel this coming June, or instead “opens his eyes wide” to the racist and apartheid treatment that is being meted out to Palestinians. Will he finally respond to the call to Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israel that other brave artists have responded to? Here is a list from Wikipedia of some artists who have:

Folk legend Pete Seger, Musicians Roger Waters and Brian Eno, Writers Eduardo Galeno and Arundhati Roy, film makers Ken Loach and Jean- Luc Godard, American singer Devendra Branhart and Irish Singer Tommy Sands, Guitarist Carlos Santana, Rocker Elvi Constello, Rap arist Gil Scott Heron, British bands The Klaxonss, Leftfields and Gorillaz Sound System, American band  Pixies,  American actress Meg Ryan, French Singer Vanessa Paradis

And here is a list from Tikun Olam:

Among the celebrities are Stephen Sondheim, Mandy Patinkin, Cynthia Nixon (Sex and the City), James Schamus (Ang Lee’s producer), Emily Mann (McCarter Theater), Eve Ensler (Vagina Monologues), Julianne Moore, Lynn Notage (Ruined), Bill Irwin, Kathleen Chalfant, Mira Nair, Oskar Eustis (Public Theater), Hal Prince (Broadway producer), Tony Kushner (Angels in America), Sheldon Harnick (Broadway lyricist), Ed Asner (Up), Theodore Bikel, Wallace Shawn, Miriam Margolyes, Ruth Reichl, and Vanessa Redgrave…

Musicians constitute a powerful voice for freedom and liberty that has helped liberate people in the past.  It is hoped that the Palestinians are not forgotten.

Remember it is all projection, the true threat from fundamentalist who want to usher in the End Times is from the likes of these Christian Right-wingers. Shame on the Jewish National Fund for enabling such activities:

via. Max Blumenthal

Tell the Jewish National Fund to stop the pogrom against Al Arakib. Call them now.

Yesterday morning, the Bedouin village of Al Arakib withstood the 18th pogrom against it by the Jewish National Fund and Israeli riot police. I mentioned in mylast post that I would begin promoting actions to hold the Jewish National Fund accountable for violently ethnic cleansing Al Arakib in order to build the GOD TV Forest of Hate. Now here is something everyone who reads this blog (minus the professional hasbara trolls) can and should do: Join the Jewish Voice for Peace call in campaign to demand that the JNF cease demolishing villages like Al Arakib. Tell your local JNF office to stop the pogroms against the indigenous population of the Negev. To be sure, this is a minor action that will probably yield only dismissive responses from JNF representatives, but it is important to apply pressure and get them on the record. Something, however small, has to be done.

Here are the contact details courtesy of JVP:

JNF National Office (international callers add 001 to beginning of US Phone numbers): (212) 879-9300

Jerusalem Office (from US)  011-972-2-563-5638

Regional Offices:

Florida

West Coast, Central, and Northern Florida: (727) 536-5263 or (813) 960-5263

Tampa: (407) 804-5568

South Florida (561) 447-9733

Miami/Dade (800) 211-1502 or (561) 447-9733

Greater New York (212) 879-9300

Greater Los Angeles (323) 964-1400

MidAtlantic

Baltimore/ Delaware: (410) 486-3317

Washington, DC (301) 589-8565

Midwest

Chicagoland (847) 656-8880

Michigan (248) 324-3080

Midwest States (Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota) (888) 563-0099

Northern Ohio (216) 464-3888

Southern Ohio (513) 794-1300 or (888) 563-0099

Western Pennsylvania (412) 521-3200

Wisconsin (414) 963-8733

New England (617) 423-0999

Northeast

Eastern Pennsylvania (215) 832-0690

New Jersey (973) 593-0095

West

Arizona (602) 277-4800

Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming & Utah (303) 573-7095

Northern California and Pacific Northwest (415) 677-9600 or (888) JNF-0099

Orange County, CA (949)-260-0400

San Diego (858) 824-9178

Palm Springs (760)864-6208

Las Vegas (702) 434-6505

South (404) 236-8990

No word from Spencer on this yet. Imagine if a Muslim had done this, there would be cries about the intolerance of Muslims and how inherently Islam cannot deal with dissension.

Jewish Voice for Peace chief threatened over pro-Palestinian campaign

(Haaretz)

The head of the pro-Palestinian organization Jewish Voice for Peace received a threatening poster at her Los Angeles area home this weekend for her involvement in the organization.

Estee Chandler, the organization leader on the West coast, said she found a poster on her front porch last week reading “WANTED for treason and incitement against Jews.”

According to Chandler, the poster displayed her picture, her workplace, other personal details and names of her relatives.

The poster charged her with using “her own presumed Jewishness as a weapon against the Jewish People and the Jewish State of Israel while conspiring with other well-known anti-Israel groups to assist in Israel’s destruction and to otherwise engender hatred and incite further violence against the Jewish People and the Jewish State of Israel.”

In a statement responding to the threat published on the organization’s website, Chandler said  “I was forewarned about extremists when I first decided to start a Jewish Voice for Peace chapter here in my hometown of Los Angeles. I went into it with my eyes open. While I didn’t think anything would happen this soon, i cant say it wasn’t something I didn’t anticipate. Ultimately I think these people really are cowards, and not really to be feared.”

“We are the silent majority of American Jews and its time for us to stop being silent. if we raise our voices a fraction of the level of these people- we will become the message, too many people who are with us are afraid. ultimately nonviolence is the only thing that has ever won out,” she added.

In October last year, the Anti-Defamation League named the Jewish Voice for Peace — which champions the rights of Palestinians and is considered an anti-Israel organization by many Americans, especially after calling to boycott companies that profit from Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza – among the top 10 anti-Israel groups in America.

The organization, however, maintains the stand that they are not fighting against Israel or challenging its right to exist, but rather questioning the Israeli government’s policies and actions in the Palestinian territories.

The distributors of the threatening poster have yet to be found, according to the JVP.

A great piece by Richard Silverstein.

ISRAELI SETTLER MK TO HUCKABEE: ‘WE’RE CONNECTED TO THIS LAND NO LESS THAN YOUR INDIANS’

(TikkunOlam)

Mike Huckabee and Israel’s radical settler movement are almost always fodder for a good laugh.  I thank Ofer Neiman for providing one in the form of an Arutz Sheva article, in which settler MK Nissim Zeev brags about his friendship with Mike Huckabee, who he brought to Israel and hosted last week.  Among the other things Huckabee did was tour and nod approvingly at the Judaization project in East Jerusalem’s Palestinian neighborhoods.

In this photo, he’s pictured addressing a settler yeshiva established with the lucre of Miami-based bingo magnate Irving Moskowitz.  Moskowitz is the very one who stole the Palestinian Shepherd Hotel and partially demolished it last week so he can move in some settler families.  I guess no one told Huckabee that this project flies directly in the face of current U.S. policy as does supporting settler thugs guilty of promoting violence and hooliganism against Palestinians and Jews alike.

But I reserve the biggest laugh for Zeev’s recounting of his discussions with his pal, Mike, who the reporter erroneously credits with being a U.S. senator:

I got together with him to pursue two issues: [international] recognition of Jewish refugees from Arab lands and recognition by the UN of Israel with the status of “indigenous.”  It’s unacceptable that after 2,000 years of exile, we are still characterized as “occupiers.”  Since 2007, there are peoples recognized by the UN as indigenous.  The U.S. also recognizes Indians as indigenous and if it won’t return to them their ancestral lands it will offer reparations.  We too require similar recognition.  Our connection to the land appears in the Bible and we are connected to this land no less than the Indians.

In fact, I’d suggest as a terrific photo-op that Mike bring together a settler chief and an Indian chief and they can both compare war stories.  Maybe the settlers can set up shop on a few reservations and teach tribal leaders who to expand their “settlements” by annexing land belonging to white folk, and force the U.S. government to recognize their land thefts.  I’m sure that’ll go over big in Washington.

Ya gotta hand it to Zeev though, he’s a real joker:

MK Zeev noted that Israel has many friends in the UN and Congress who have only to be asked to make the changes he’s proposing.  I visited Congress, where we have many friends, and many told me it was unfortunate that Israel didn’t make this demand [of Congress].

Zeev said that Huckabee promised to do everything in his power to bring this proposal before the UN…

Go ahead, Mike.  What’s stopping you?  You’re a U.S. senator, aren’t you?  Bring forward a ‘sense of the senate’ resolution recognizing Israeli Jews as indigenous.  Maybe one of the long-lost Indian tribes?  And while you’re at it let’s get Congress to allocate a few billions in reparation for Jews who suffered an “Arab Holocaust” and were expelled from their native lands.  A Jewish Nakba.  Of our very own.  Why should only Arabs get to have one?  Just doesn’t seem fair.  If they get to suffer, why not us as well?

Mike’s not above a little mirth as well.  Among the pithy statements he made while in the Holy Land preparing for Armageddon were that he believed in a Palestinian state, just not in Israel.  Which at first glance might appear to be a conventional endorsement of the two state solution…until you realize that Huckabee embraces the settler narrative that all of Greater Israel including Palestine is Israel.  So he’s in effect telling Palestinians and his own U.S. government to move Palestine somewhere like, say Uganda.  Where have we heard that one before?

How outright disgusting can Mike Huckabee get? Suggesting Palestinians should be resettled from their homes to Muslim territory, he also exposes his ignorance of the fact that there are Palestinian Christians and I shudder to think that this guy is a candidate for 2012.

Huckabee: Palestinians Should Be Resettled In ‘Muslim’ Territory

Far from Iowa, likely Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee told a crowd of Jewish Israelis yesterday that he’d be just as mad as they are if anybody tried to kick him out of America the way Israelis are being asked to not build or live in disputed lands.

“I cannot imagine as an American being told that I could not live in certain places in America because I was Christian, or because I was white, or because I spoke English,” Huckabee said. “I would be outraged if someone told me that in my country, I would be prohibited and forbidden to live in a part of that country, for any reason.”

Huckabee was attending a cornerstone-laying ceremony for a new neighborhood on the Mount of Olives in east Jerusalem — a disputed territory in the Middle East that Huckabee says should belong to Israel. East Jerusalem and the adjacent West Bank aren’t recognized as Israeli land by most of the international community; Israel annexed East Jerusalem shortly after the Six Day War, while the remainder of the West Bank — where there are numerous Israeli settlements — remains under military administration..

Palestinians who live in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, Huckabee said, should settle in “territory that [is] in the hands of Muslims, in the hands of Arabs,” as determined by the “international community.”

Huckabee appeared at the event with actor Jon Voight, the Tea Party’s favorite celebrity better known to most Israelis as Angelina Jolie’s father.

“And now you are here, this is your time, and you are doing what you should be doing, which is to prepare the next generations and to be the hope of the world that you are,” Voight said. “I love you all.”

The issue of the Rabbis who are urging Jews not to rent to Arabs just won’t go away. They are now calling on the public to “inform” on those renting to Arabs. Those disgusted by these actions held a counter march and rally to protest against racist lawmakers/Rabbis in Tel Aviv.

Public invited to inform on those renting to Arabs

(YNetnews.com)

The Lehava organization issued a notice Sunday evening, inviting the public to call a voicemail service and record the names of Jewish Israelis renting apartments to Arabs. Lehava, identified with supporters of Meir Kahane, thus adds its weight to the recent call by 50 prominent rabbis to avoid renting to Arabs which, the organization says, amounts to no less than assimilation.

According to the notice, the information given anonymously will be verified, after which the names will be published as a mark of disgrace “so the public can decide what to do with them.”

“If we were in the time of (former Prime Minister David) Ben Gurion or (former Prime Minister) Golda (Meir), the organization would undoubtedly receive a governmental citation,” said a Lehava activist to Ynet, claiming the activists were taking the rabbis’ letter one step further.

“The organization wants to apply this important ruling, while our main aim is to counter assimilation. We publish our number, people will call, then we’ll make checks of course, and as soon as we see the information is correct we’ll publish it in a list of disgrace.”

The activist added that the publication of the list of names will not actively include a call to harm the people involved.

He also referred to what he termed “assimilation,” saying, “Unfortunately, this is a serious problem, and we hope the rabbis’ halachic ruling will put a stop to it. This is an existential struggle for the character of the Jewish State, and we don’t intend to give up.”

This new initiative comes just a week after 50 rabbis signed a position paper which stated that renting or selling apartments or land in Israel to non-Jews is forbidden according to halacha.

“The neighbors and acquaintances of the seller or renter must warn him personally first and later they are allowed to make this matter public, distance themselves from him, avoid commercial ties, and so on,” the letter reads.

We all need rain.

Holy Land Jews, Muslims and Christians Pray for Rain

BY JUDITH SUDILOVSKY (Ecumenical News Wire)

Unseasonably dry weather in the Holy Land region, with no predictions of rain in the near future, has led a group of about 60 local Jewish and Muslim religious leaders, plus one Christian, to join in praying for rain.

Rabbi Yehuda Stolov of the Interfaith Encounter Association, which helped organize the gathering, said that the prayers on Nov. 11 were not only a plea to God for much-needed rain but also showed the commonality that the residents of the region shared.

The Christian involved was a Roman Catholic priest from Bethlehem.

“They are joint needs. They [the people] need the same things, and they ask for them from the same God,” Stolov told ENInews.

The prayers were said at a natural spring in a valley between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, which lie close to one another, and near the village of Wallajah, whose land is under threat during the expansion of an Israeli-built separation barrier, which juts into Palestinian-held land.

The joint prayer occurred after a group of rabbis had visited the West Bank village of Beit Fajjar, where they met Bethlehem governor Abd Al Fattah Hamayel several weeks ago, after Israeli settler were accused of vandalizing a village mosque.

“It [the joint prayer session] was a very emotional experience,” said Rabbi Elchanan Nir, coordinator of the Abraham’s Tent group, which brings together rabbis and Muslim sheiks for monthly meetings.

Nir said it was the first time such a joint prayer for rain had been held in the Holy Land with rabbis and sheiks, and added, “It was a very strong prayer. We saw them pray, and they saw us pray. I hope it will bring rain, and that it will bring unity.”

Stolov commented that the presence of media representatives prevented a true meeting between the worshippers, which was one goal of the event, but they were able to witness each others’ prayer, “which is something to be valued.”

A speech by Bethlehem governor Al Fattah began the proceedings. Then, a Jewish prayer for rain was recited, after which the sheiks recited their regular afternoon Islamic prayers, plus a prayer for rain.

“The purpose of this joint prayer gathering was to break the boundaries between Jews and Muslims,” Ibrahim Embawi, the Muslim coordinator for Abraham’s Tent, told ENInews. “We both inhabit the same land, and need the same water. We all pray to the same God. If it does not rain, we both will be in trouble.”

Dennis Prager is at war with leftists, secularists, labor unions, civil rights organizations, Big Government, academics, atheists, Europeans, internationalists, “moral relativists” — and Muslims. Nothing personal, it’s just his worldview — that and the fact that not one Muslim in the entire world is a moderate:

There are a billion Muslims in the world. How is it possible that essentially none have demonstrated against evils perpetrated by Muslims in the name of Islam? This is true even of the millions of Muslims living in free Western societies. What are non-Muslims of goodwill supposed to conclude?

Long before it was fashionable to burn Qu’rans, Prager, a Republican convert, began trash-talking them:

In 2006 he wrote that “America, not Keith Ellison, decides what book a congressman takes his oath on,” in taking great offense that the first Muslim elected to Congress had decided to take his oath of office on a Qu’ran and not on a Christian bible. The ADL noted the bigotry of Prager’s remarks and conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson pointed out the irony that “here we have a Jew pushing a Muslim to use the Christian Bible.”

In Moment Magazine, which features articles of contemporary Jewish interest, Prager awkwardly (and self-contradictorily) defended his views, even after it was pointed out that many politicians had sworn their oath of office on books other than the bible or on none at all:

America has no state religion, nor should it ever be allowed to have one. But it has always been a Judeo-Christian country. Jews—and America itself—will suffer if we cease to be one. Just ask the Jews of secular Europe how their secular societies treat them and Israel. For that matter, just think about how our secular universities have become anti-Israel hate centers.

On the one hand Prager says America should be secular. But on the other hand he says it should privilege Jews and Christians. This is vintage Prager — a new believer in Kulturkampf between Islam and the West.

Despite his own advanced case, Prager denies that Islamophobia actually exists. As the co-author of a book on anti-Semitism himself, Prager should know better, but he wrote:

The fact remains that the term “Islamophobia” has one purpose — to suppress any criticism, legitimate or not, of Islam. And given the cowardice of the Western media, and the collusion of the left in banning any such criticism (while piling it on Christianity and Christians), it is working.

When it comes to anti-Semitism, however, Prager rejects identical arguments and in fact argues that Zionism is part of Judaism — so any criticism of Israel or Jewry amounts to the same thing:

Among the many lies that permeate the modern world, none is greater — or easier to refute — than the claim that Zionism is not an integral part of Judaism or the claim that anti-Zionism is unrelated to anti-Semitism.

Thus, anyone who challenges Zionism — for example, Palestinians who are in conflict with Israel or the legions of academics, NGOs, international organizations, or human rights groups, even many Jews — is by definition an anti-Semite.

The Middle East conflict? Bah! That’s just anti-Semitism he writes in a piece, “The Middle East conflict is hard to solve but easy to explain:”

Those who deny this and ascribe the conflict to other reasons, such as “Israeli occupation,” “Jewish settlements,” a “cycle of violence,” “the Zionist lobby” and the like, do so despite the fact that Israel’s enemies regularly announce the reason for the conflict. The Iranian regime, Hizbollah, Hamas and the Palestinians — in their public opinion polls, in their anti-Semitic school curricula and media, in their election of Hamas, in their support for terror against Israeli civilians in pre-1967 borders — as well as their Muslim supporters around the world, all want the Jewish state annihilated.

Thus Prager completely dismisses any geopolitical causes or “trivial issues” like land theft or ethnic cleansing. No, there is just one reason for all this hostility and it can only be Islam. And it’s clear that Prager is not just talking about a few fanatical winguts when he lumps all of the world’s Muslims into this denunciation, in an article entitled “The Islamic threat is greater than German and Soviet threats were:”

A far larger number of people believe in Islamic authoritarianism than ever believed in Marxism. Virtually no one living in Marxist countries believed in Marxism or communism. Likewise, far fewer people believed in Nazism, an ideology confined largely to one country for less than one generation. This is one enormous difference between the radical Islamic threat to our civilization and the two previous ones. But there is yet a second difference that is at least as significant and at least as frightening: Nazis and Communists wanted to live and feared death; Islamic authoritarians love death and loathe life.

But in fact, for Prager, who participated in one of David Horowitz’s “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” events, “Islam is identical to “Islamofascism:

So once one acknowledges the obvious, that there is fascistic behavior among a core of Muslims — specifically, a cult of violence and the wanton use of physical force to impose an ideology on others — the term “Islamo-Fascism” is entirely appropriate.

Dennis Prager’s attitudes toward Muslims are echoed in his views on immigrants in America. A Tea Party supporter, Prager supports Arizona Law SB1070 and believes in American Exceptionalism or Judeo-Christian Dominionism. In this clip at a Tea Party event in Colorado, sitting next to Sarah Palin, Prager describes his revulsion for internationalism and European morality, praising something rather like an American version of Zionism. His is a world view common to the Tea Party, Likudniks, and neoconservatives.

As for Islamophobia — it’s just one of Prager’s many hobbies — but integral to this worldview.

Jews on First has an excellent report on the CUFI Conference that is a must read.

Inside CUFI’s 2010 Washington “Summit”

Christians United for Israel’s (CUFI) fifth annual Washington Summit, held this past July 20-22, 2010, highlighted once again the persistence and institutionalization of CUFI as the American Christian Zionist organization. As with its previous Summits, it was repeatedly emphasized that t

he support and love that CUFI and its members have for Israel and the Jewish people – to be sure a very particular kind of support – was based on the Biblical mandate of Christians to do just that. Of course, this is not to be dismissed as afalse reason for its support. Indeed the proliferation and popularity of the “prosperity gospel” in contemporary conservative Protestantism has ensured that the repeated refrain of Genesis 12:3 (I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you) resonates among the (Christian) leaders of CUFI and its members. This is because it funnels the belief in personal “blessings” (which are almost always considered in financial terms) and national blessings (the furtherance of a conservative social agenda and American global dominance) into the ultimate investment: Israel.

This point was emphasized within the first hour of the opening night of the conference by Diana Hagee (wife of Rev. John Hagee) who pointed out that: “we need to spend more time praying for Israel and less time praying for our personal needs. Life is going to get a whole lot better for us, and trust me, all those other things (one’s personal desires) are going to be taken care of [if we bless Israel correctly].” While not false reasons for support (irrespective of how misguided they might be), it was evident that the repeated invocation also served a didactic function for those in attendance – many of whom, as in previous years, cited the importance of Israel in the end-times as reasons for their support – to let them know how they should be responding to questions regarding their support for Israel.

Despite this, the subtle invocations of symbolic eschatological language and logic were evident, not only in the words of the speakers, but also in the jubilant responses from the audience when such symbolism was used. And really, in the context of CUFI, symbolism is all that is needed to convey the eschatological underpinnings of its goals and their mission, despite the sustained refrain to the contrary. This is because the particular end-times message has been around long enough and is more comprehensively conveyed in other mediums that allusion is sufficient to engender the desired understanding from the audience, while not alienating those who don’t understand or share the same beliefs.

The use of symbolic language, in a particularly religious context was most evident in the opening session of prayer, in which attendees were instructed on how to effectively pray for Israel, and taught the purpose of their mission. Significantly, the opening prayer session was used as a moment to consecrate the conference and the role of attendees as God’s divine agents at a particular point in history (the history of the future), and that they would be blessed accordingly for serving God in this way. In Diana Hagee’s words: “God use me, ’til I draw my last breath or better yet till the trumpet sounds!” (That is, until the rapture occurs).

Diana Hagee further elaborated CUFI’s prophetic mission when she likened her husband to a modern day prophet:

Watchmen can see into the distance, and there have been three people in history with this prophetic power. Theodore Herzl – although being an unlikely candidate for God’s will (as a secular Jew) fulfilled it (and it was made clear that this was concomitant with the help of early Christian Zionists) by pushing for the creation of modern Israel. The second person was Ze’ev Jabotinsky for calling Jews out of Europe prior to the Holocaust. The third is John Hagee. Four years ago, John Hagee called together over 400 leaders to start CUFI and at the time things were good; we had a Christian who supported Israel in the White House and there was little trouble. But he said that in its fifth year we “will know why we are here.” And now we are in our fifth year and we know why we are here.

The implication of this – which was not lost on the audience – was that now, the Obama Administration is serving the cause of evil. It is applying further pressure on the Israeli administration to negotiate peace with its Palestinian neighbors, while also attempting to reach out to the Arab and Muslim world – two things which are themselves considered to be harbingers of the end-times because of the “false peace” brought about by the antichrist, and also the establishment of a one-world government, to which international cooperation and diplomacy are frequently portrayed as precursors.

The opening night of the conference coincided with the start of Tisha B’av, the Jewish commemoration and mourning of the destruction of the first and second Temples. It is difficult to discern whether or not Tisha B’av was taken into account prior to the organization of the conference. When asking whether attendees knew what it was, Diana Hagee claimed a willful ignorance, relating that when Rabbi Aryeh Scheinberg used the words “Tisha B’av”, she didn’t know what it was and thought he could have just as easily been “ordering a sandwich.” Although the comment was meant to be light-hearted it seemed to betray a distinct lack of respect for Jewish tradition from an organization that emphatically portrays itself as an embodiment of modern philo-Semitism (admiration for Jews). Nevertheless, the customary reading of the Book of Lamentations proceeded to the delight of the Christian attendees. This commemoration of Tisha B’av at the conference seemed to perform another function: It further consecrated the event, as an historical one of the coming together of Christians and Jews, but more importantly it defined the Jewish speakers at the conference as “real Jews,” conferring to them a much greater sense of legitimacy and authority because of their religious devotion. Such adulation is in keeping with our report and reflections on the 2008 Summit (which can be found here.)

The religious and motivational significance of this opening night should not be underestimated. It set the tone for the rest of the conference, which was slowly emptied of overt theological reference to focus on politics and the more practical reasons that Christians need to be supporting Israel, instilling the belief that they have been brought up by God for a mission “at such a time as this.” It conveyed to the Christian attendees that they were “walking in the mantle of Esther” – a reference to Queen Esther who saved all the Jews from annihilation, as celebrated during the Jewish holiday of Purim. Importantly for today, the parallel is rendered even more effective due to the fact that the Book of Esther is set in ancient Persia – modern Iran – the current thorn in the side of neoconservatives and also a country with a prominent role in the eschatology of Christian Zionists. Therefore the neoconservative message they received at the various tutorials during the proceeding days became imbued with a sacred meaning despite the very worldly hegemonic goals of those espousing them.

Israel 101: The Basics of the Arab Israeli Conflict
At one of the educational breakout sessions entitled: Israel 101: The Basics of the Arab Israeli Conflict, Gary Bauer opened the session, highlighting the salience of fear and emotion used to garner support and to frame issues within a wider cosmic battle by using his time to speak explicitly about 9/11. The central thrust of Bauer’s argument, was that “the attackers on 9/11, thepeople causing havoc throughout the Middle East were not created by poverty or social injustice, they grew out of radical Islam.” Palestinians were further painted with a broad brush as extremists, while strains of thought that gave the Palestinians a sense of humanity were similarly disparaged when Bauer later noted that:

It is has become an accepted fact among America’s elites that the great majority of the Palestinian people want to live in peace, side by side with the Israeli people – I’m sorry, somebody needs to prove it to me… The reality, ladies and gentlemen is this: evil men, who worship death, they brag about. Evil men who worship death, at this very moment are planning for you and for me, and for Israelis and for free men and women all over the world, sorrows unimaginable to us.

He later went on to state that he does not believe “any peace process will work in the Middle East, until this evil philosophy has been defeated. And then – and only then – Israel will be secure, America will be secure, and we, thank God, will have avoided another dark age.” This statement furthered a theme that was evident throughout the conference, which began with the divine mandate given to CUFI by its leaders on the opening night: America and Israel are engaged in a cosmic battle between good and evil, the success of which must be ensured to continue to curry God’s favor for the West. Moreover, it subtly shows the continued hostility that CUFI has towards the peace process, preferring to focus on defeating “this evil philosophy”, which appeared to be code for an unabated continuity of the “war on terrorism.”

Bauer was followed by AIPAC’s Jeff Mendelsohn. Mendelsohn opened his speech using language that spoke directly to the eschatological hopes and dreams of many Christian Zionists, describing Israel as “not just a Jewish issue, it is [also] a Christian issue, it is an American issue, it is an issue of importance to the Western world – and I think ultimately, it is an issue of great importance to all of civilization.” That is to say, Mendelsohn was engaging Christian Zionists in their belief that Israel is the key to end-times prophecy and the place where God’s millennial kingdom will be established after the tribulation; it is the epicenter where civilization will continue after the current world has been rid of evil.

The Iranian Threat
As in previous years enmity towards Iran maintained a strong foothold throughout the conference. During the second breakout session, The Iranian Threat, self-described CUFI “repeat offender” and former Reagan official, Frank Gaffney, described Iran as being “probably within months of operationalizing” its “incipient nuclear capabilities.” Gaffney then told the audience that Iran could use one of these weapons against the United States in a “catastrophic attack that could literally destroy the country” through the use of electromagnetic pulse (EMP), a favorite line that John Hagee has also towed in his numerous books on prophecy. 9/11 was again intoned to remind attendees of the threat purportedly facing the United States and to link Iran to those events, whenGaffney described jihad as “the violent form of terror that we have all come to know particularly since 9/11 but that actually, arguably, was first waged against us back in 1979 by the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

While reminding the audience of this ominous threat, Gaffney quickly altered his focus to the more subtle (and potentially more fear-inducing) threat of “stealth jihad” and the notion that Iran and the rest of the “Muslim world” were unequivocally bent on establishing a global theocracy that would rule over each one of us.

The idea that Iran and other more generic threats from Islam were “stealing a march on us” through this stealth jihad was discussed in terms of the availability of “Shariah compliant finance” as an insidious threat to our way of life: “It is afflicting freedom loving people not just in the Middle East, but Europe, Canada, Latin America, and yes here in the United States as well. We must do what we can to save our country, to save Israel, from these assorted threats. We need to be informed about this one most especially.”

The “Ground Zero Mosque” was highlighted as the most ominous characterization of this threat, and elicited the most emotional response from the audience. In Gaffney’s words:

Right now, there is a fight brewing over whether we will accede to the latest assertion of Shariah’s dominance of our ultimate, inevitable submission to this program, within what I like to call ‘spitting distance’ of what is arguably for most Americans today, the most sacred ground in this country. I’m talking about Ground Zero. There, in keeping with the traditions of Shariah…. adherents to Shariah, people who have made it absolutely explicit they intend to bring it to America, are now proposing to build within 600 feet within the World Trade Center site, a 13-story building, $100 million for Shariah…. It is part of this supremacist agenda of symbolically and for all time demonstrating the triumph of this Islamic program, on our most sacred soil. I say to you ladies and gentlemen, it is not about faith; Shariah is a totalitarian, political program. It is about conquest. It is about the destruction of freedom of religion, and indeed all civil liberties … those who adhere to it are our absolutely immutable enemies! They must be defeated!

Clifford May, president of the conservative “Foundation for the Defense of Democracies”, also appealed to the attendees’ belief in their divine mission, letting them know during the opening of his talk that they were “doing God’s work.” His talk, followed a similar line to Gaffney’s, warning the audience of the goals the Iranian Mullahs’ desires to bring the Western World under the control of an Islamic Caliphate. May further entrenched Gaffney’s point that “once shariah get its nose, its camel’s nose, in the tent, the beast will follow.” May then spent most of his talk, traversing quickly between statements by Iranian officials and other leaders in the Muslim world about their purportedly unified effort to bring down the West.

Controversial and incendiary comments about a pre-emptive strike on Iran – which many ChristianZionists see as a catalyst for an attack on Israel purportedly prophesied in Ezekiel 38-39 – that have been made by John Hagee at past conferences were notably absent from this year’s Summit. However, May was able to effectively promote the idea by putting the words into the mouth of the ambassador for the United Arab Emirates, as May paraphrased him:

We cannot live with a nuclear Iran. By we [the ambassador] apparently meant the more moderate countries of the Middle East. He went on to add that if sanctions failed to stop Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons military force will be the only option left, and it must not be ruled out.

In describing the Iranian threat of nuclear capabilities, Robert Satloff, executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, also created a sense of urgency. Like the speakers before him, Satloff used some vague terms that are familiar to Christian Zionists regarding the end times, suggesting that the short time needed for Iran to achieve nuclear capability meant that it was “five minutes to midnight.” Anyone familiar with John Hagee’s book From Daniel to Doomsday or other literature on prophecy will know that certain prophetic events are often demarcated based on their length of time from midnight.

To Satloff’s credit he did speak on the importance of the Green movement in Iran and the reality that the country itself is divided, rather than portraying the country as a unified force where the enitre population seeks to destroy the West and Israel through any means necessary. However, this assertion was undercut by Gaffney later during the question and answer period when Gaffney argued that: “Time is running out to support the Greens. We had best be about the business of preparing for military action,” to which the crowd responded far more enthusiastically than they did to Satloff’s suggestion of the potential to reach out and help the Green movement.

Lobbying Congress
During the “Civics 101″ session CUFI’s Executive Director, David Brog took time to steer attendees down a particular path: appeal to American civil religion, but don’t reference your explicit beliefs. He instructed attendees to “tell your congressman that you are a Christian and you are here for onereason and one reason only: Israel…. It’s a Christian issue, and more importantly, it’s an American issue.” Something that again subtly speaks to the belief among Christian Zionists that their, and America’s, failure to support Israel in the way that CUFI defines support will result in divine punishment for America.

Intent on ensuring that an effective and professional group was representing CUFI to their congressmen and women, while also understanding the true issues that motivate CUFI members, Brog was even more specific:

Please stay on the issue of Israel…. If you care about the issue of life, that’s fantastic, but come another day. If you care about the issue of marriage, that’s important. Call them another day. We are here for one issue and one issue only. [tell them] ‘I’m your constituent, I’m a Christian, I’m here for Israel.’ Please don’t stray from the talking points…. When in Rome, do as the Romans do … it is important to speak to policy makers in a language that they understand, and that is the language of policy. Our faith informs and inspires our activism. We’re all here because of our faith. But with sadly limited exceptions, most of those guys on Capitol Hill, don’t speak the language of faith. With sadly limited exceptions, most of the guys on the Hill are driven by policy considerations, not considerations of faith. So, I ask you this quite seriously. When you go up to a congressman, and you start quoting the Bible, quoting the scripture, talking about a vision you had that’s been very important in your life … they just don’t speak that language, and they’re not going to be swayed by that language. So unless you know your member well, and you know he’s a man of God, we strongly and respectfully request you speak to them in a language that they will understand, the language of policy.”

While asking members not to express the specifics of their faith openly, Brog quickly emphasized that he understands and shares the views of the attendees, speaking inclusively, he stated: “We are here because of our faith, but we’re doing something important for God if we get these men of power to stand with Israel … let’s speak their language, that’s how we will best serve God tomorrow.”

Diana Hagee also made a brief appearance during the session as a way to remind attendees of their prophetic mission as a parallel to Brog’s more practical requests: “we are chosen for such a time as this to be watchmen on the wall. We’re all building our portion of the wall; we’re all doing a good work. We have a hammer in one hand and a sword in the other….”

Night To Honor Israel
While Brog emphasized the importance of speaking in the language of policy, rather than prophecy, to the elected officials,speakers at the culminating Night to Honor Israel reversed the trend and reinvoked the symbolic, eschatological language that opened the Summit.

As in previous years, Sentator Joseph Lieberman referred to John Hagee as a “man of God” just like Moses. Similarly, Gary Bauer, after again disparaging the catastrophic threats awaiting Israel and the West proclaimed, “It is for such a time as this, that John Hagee has become a watchman on the wall for Israel who never sleeps.”

During his speech John Hagee quickly divided the world into two groups: “those who support Israel, and those who don’t. There is no middle ground.” Hagee continued to claim, “The free world is at war with radical Islam. Without victory there is no survival. Not for America, not for Israel.”

Immediatly following Hagee’s speech, his wife Diana took the stage to put pressure on attendees for financial donations. “Our future does not depend on our economy,” stated Diana, “our future depends on our obedience to the living God. And if we give, and if we honor God, we can trust him to honor us. Our cause is Israel. Our cause is just. Our cause is right. Our cause is good, and our cause is holy.”

Critical Reflections on the 2010 Washington Summit
Throughout the conference a number of observations can be made. Firstly, now in its fifth year, CUFI has evolved and seems to have tightened it grip on some of the more stark language that can be easily attacked by its critics. Violent language calling for preemtive strikes on Iran were softened, and terms like “Islamofascism” – favorites of John Hagee in other mediums and previous Summits – were notably absent. Even Frank Gaffney who is openly hostile towards Islam corrected an attendee who referred to Islam as “Islamofascism” preferring to call it jihad. However, the emphasis on these issues and the preferred action to be taken against them remained the same as in previous years. There was also a strong sense that despite CUFI’s obvious purpose being the support of Israel, the interest among many of the Summit attendees was the salvation of America. Standing with Israel was always framed as an “American Issue.” Senator Joseph Lieberman, after once again comparing John Hagee to Moses, stated “Support of Israel is as American as apple pie and baseball.” It is this issue that helps confirm the eschatological worldview of participants and leaders as well. Their absolute belief in Genesis 12:3, combined with a belief in the imminence of divine judgement propels them to support Israel, ultimately it would seem for many, to ensure America survives.

Geert Wilders, the peroxide dyed anti-Muslim neo-Fascist Dutch politician is adding to his list of bigoted comments. Not only is he for banning the Qur’an, taxing the hijab, expelling immigrants, and ending all Muslim immigration to the Netherlands but he is now pontificating on the Palestinian/Israeli issue.

Forget the two-state solution! Wilders believes Palestine will never exist as an independent country, and he repeats the Golda Meir line that Jordan is the only Palestinian state. Essentially he has thrown his weight behind Occupation, displacement, theft of land and violence against Palestinians…again. The question is how crucial is the Palestinian/Israeli issue to the Netherlands in the first place, and why does Wilders see a need to comment on it? (Hat tip: Anneke Auer)

Wilders’ Tweet:

Jordan is the only Palestinian state that will ever exist. Judea/Samaria are Israel’s the more settlements their the better

Glenn Greenwald

Another excellent piece from the anti-loon Glenn Greenwald. He takes on the crazy and zany remarks from Chuck Schumer, a “mainstream Democrat.”

Chuck Schumer: Mainstream Democrat

by Glenn Greenwald

Chuck Schumer, the third-ranking Democrat in the U.S. Senate, spoke to an event of Orthodox Jewish leaders on Wednesday and made comments that can only be described as bigoted and disgusting.  Kudos to Zaid Jilani who, despite working for the Democratic Party-serving Center for American Progress, wrote about Schumer’s remarks on CAP’s ThinkProgress blog and explained the reasons they were filled with falsehoods, or — as he put it — “as offensive as they are wrong.”

Schumer told his audience that the ”Palestinian people still don’t believe in the Jewish state, in a two-state solution” and added that “they don’t believe in the Torah, in David.”  As a result,”you have to force them to say Israel is here to stay.”  It’s the Israeli blockade which accomplishes that, he argued.  And Schumer is due some credit for being honest enough (unlike most devoted Israel defenders) to admit that a prime purpose of the blockade has nothing to do with keeping arms away from Hamas, but rather, is to economically strangle the people in Gaza — meaning not Hamas, but the 1.5 million human beings (men, women and children) who live there:

And to me, since the Palestinians in Gaza elected Hamas, while certainly there should be humanitarian aid and people not starving to death, to strangle them economically until they see that’s not the way to go, makes sense.

So as long as Israel stops just short of starving them all to death, then what Israel is doing is justified — just like John Yoo explained that American torture is perfectly legal and permissible just as long as it stops short of causing major organ failure or death (or, as Juan Cole put it, “anything short of ‘starving to death’, i.e. mass extermination in the camps, is all right as long as it convinces the enemy?”).  I think the most repugnant part of Schumer’s comments is when he spoke about Gazans as though they were dogs needing to be trained to behave properly:  the blockade is justified because it shows the Palestinians living there that “when there’s some moderation and cooperation, they can have an economic advancement.”  Is that — punish the people of Gaza for the acts of Terrorists — not the very definition of “collective punishment,” which happens to be a war crime under the Geneva Conventions?  The crowd — as the video of Schumer’s speech reflects (below) — erupted in wild cheers at his comments.

Of course, before Israeli propagandists began claiming for the consumption of Americans that the purpose of the blockade was to keep arms away from Terrorists, they freely admitted what Schumer acknowledged; when the blockade was first instituted, Dov Weisglass, adviser to then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said: “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.”  Indeed, Schumer made very similar remarks back in April when — in the middle of condemning Obama for the crime of applying minimal pressure on Israel — he told an interviewer:  ”Israel has blocked off the border and not let anything into Gaza, and I support Israel in doing that, and it may be tough on the Palestinian people, but when they vote for Hamas they are going to have to suffer the consequences.”  If a country doesn’t vote for the leaders Chuck Schumer and Israel want, their children will be malnourished to the point of stunted growth, pervasive anemia, and massive food insecurity.  Aside from how morally repugnant and criminal those actions are, see here for how harmful it is to America’s national interests, something with which Schumer appears completely unconcerned (they hate us for our Freedoms!).

At his personal blog, CAP’s Jilani elaborated on why Schumer’s remarks are so foul, including asking us to imagine what would happen if, say, Rep. Keith Ellison gave a speech urging that all Israelis be denied “fresh meat, basic medical supplies, and a whole host of humanitarian items” as a result of the horrific acts of the government they elected.  Condemnation would pour down on him from all corners.  That’s the same glaring double standard that just ended Helen Thomas’ career even though people as disparate as Mike Huckabee, Dick Armey and Matt Yglesias have said virtually the same exact thing about Palestinians that Thomas said about Israelis without any repercussions whatsoever (indeed, have seen their careers flourish afterward, though Yglesias, who was in college at the time, clearly no longer believes anything like that and now sees his remarks as “terrible”).  Numerous people have written very good posts about why Schumer’s comments are as false as they are repugnant — see Juan Cole, David Dayen, Philip Weiss, and Taylor Marsh (who said, accurately:  ”This is your Democratic Party hierarchy, folks”).

That last point, made by Marsh, is the critical one.  This is why I’ve come to see the Democratic Party (and its apologists and loyalists in the pundit class) much differently now that it’s in power rather than out of it.  Just look at Schumer himself.  He isn’t some obscure Democratic official; he’s one of its leading figures.  He’s not one of those dreaded Blue Dogs or “conservative” Democrats which Party pundit-apparatchiks and reverent Obama loyalists love to exploit to excuse the Party’s flaws (don’t blame the weak and helpless Obama; he is a prisoner to those bad, powerful conservative Democrats); rather, Schumer is considered progressive, or at least mainstream, within the Party, representing one of its largest and bluest states.  If anyone is the face of the mainstream Democratic Party, it’s Chuck Schumer.  That’s why he’s clearly the most likely replacement for Harry Reid to become Senate Majority Leader if Reid loses in November.

But look at what Schumer represents, who he is.  Schumer championed countless, radical Bush appointees (including John Bolton, Michael Mukasey and Michael Hayden), but then sabatoged Obama’s appointment of Chas Freeman due to insufficient devotion to Israel.  As The New York Times documented, he has long served as one of Wall Street’s most loyal and devoted servants, reaping huge benefits for himself and his Party.  As the financial reform package gets negotiated and watered down, Schumer leads the way in doing Wall Street’s bidding.  After spending years sucking up union money, he just congratulated Blanche Lincoln for fighting unions (and, showing how cynical he is, also congratulated her for fighting Wall Street even as business interests almost single-handedly funded her campaign and as he himself continues to serve as the most devoted property of bankers).  So that’s Chuck Schumer:  suffocate Gazans; champion Bush national security appointees; punish those with insufficient devotion to Israel; serve Wall Street.  And that, by definition, is the mainstream of the Democratic Party.

* * * * *

One last, related note:  Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman, one of Israel’s most steadfast defenders in Congress, last week demanded, while speaking on a conference call organized by “pro-Israel groups,” that the Justice Department prosecute all American citizens who were on board the flotilla attacked by Israel (for, in essence, providing material support to Terrorists by trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Gazans), as well as demanding that Homeland Security permanently ban all the other passengers from entering the U.S.  In this conflict that involved a foreign nation (Israel) against numerous American citizens, one of which ended up being shot four times in the head by the foreign country’s commandos, Sherman sides with the foreign nation and calls for the Americans involved to be imprisoned.  I spent the last week emailing with Sherman’s Communications Director, Matt Farrauto, in an attempt to schedule a podcast interview (or other type of interview) with Sherman about his demands.  Suffice to say, I have some questions to ask Sherman about his ideas.  After repeatedly indicating that he would try to schedule something, Farrauto — who sent me a pro forma statement from Sherman on this matter — emailed last night to say, without explanation:  ”Not sure that I’m going to get him for an interview. Is the statement useful for your purposes?”

I asked Farrauto whether Sherman has agreed to any interviews where he faced skeptical or adversarial questions about his radical call for American citizens to be prosecuted for trying to deliver humanitarian aid in violation of Israel’s wishes.  He hasn’t responded, and I’ll post any response I get.  But that’s Brad Sherman:  cowardly issuing demands like that in front of highly sympathetic Israel activists, but then refusing to answer actual questions about it.

UPDATE:  Earlier in the week, McClatchy obtained internal Israeli documents demonstrating that the purpose of the blockade isn’t about security but, rather, “economic warfare.”  Meanwhile, M.J. Rosenberg writes about the numerous Congressional Democrats lining up to support Israel’s attack on the flotilla.

UPDATE II:  The aforementioned Matt Yglesias, of the aforementioned CAP, has a post condemning what he calls Schumer’s “disgusting” remarks, and he adds some thoughts about Israel and Gaza generally.

David Horowitz

David Horowitz, the former Marxist turned neo-Conservative and the person who funds such loathsome individuals as Robert Spencer and his Jihad Watch was at UMass where he faced strong opposition from students. He ended up calling Palestinians Nazis, said Islam is worse and more dangerous than Nazism and other crazy stuff.

Horowitz Brings Controversial Ideas to Student Union

By: Michelle Williams | February 25, 2010 | ShareThis

Editor’s Note: Due to the snow day, this article will appear in the paper edition of Thursday, Feb. 25. As such, the online article has been slightly updated.

Ashley Lesperance/Collegian

On Tuesday evening, former New Left radical turned conservative pundit and author of such works as “Hating Whitey: and Other Progressive Causes,” and “Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left,” David Horowitz spoke in the Cape Cod Lounge in the Student Union.

Outside the Lounge two UMass Police officers were stationed at the door, with numerous law enforcement officials inside in plainclothes.

Justin Thomas, vice president of the University of Massachusetts Republican Club, the RSO which brought Horowitz to UMass, defended the heavy police presence at the event, citing previous events including Don Feder’s speech in March 2009, which was disrupted by protesters.

David Horowitz is described by the Republican Club as a well-known author and lifelong civil rights activist. He was sponsored to speak at UMass for a payment of $5,000 plus expenses, including transportation, lodging, and payment for protection.

Those protesting disagree that his speech was worth funding.

“I am here protesting because, as a UMass student attending a public university, I don’t welcome homophobia, and Islamophobia that is integrated in Horowitz’s hate speech.” said Marah DeFlavia, a junior at UMass. “I feel that bringing Horowitz to this campus was socially irresponsible, and it sends a negative message regarding our campus.”

Protesters passed out flyers labeling Horowitz a racist, citing an article he wrote which likened calling Rush Limbaugh a racist to calling minorities racial epithets.

The evening seemed a perfect test of some of Horowitz’s primary tenets, as he has asserted that liberal thinkers suppress free thought in academia in such pieces as “The Professors: 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America.”

Ultimately, this forum turned out better than last year’s contested gathering. Some protesters did speak out, and while they were asked to leave, none were forcibly removed or arrested.

The UMPD also implemented security measures, including not allowing audience members to bring backpacks with them inside. Members of the audience were also asked not to hold up signs or interrupt, though some disruption did occur.

UMass student Alex Tuffile was excited for the night’s events, having read all of Horowitz’s books. When asked his thoughts on the protesters, after viewing them quietly passing out flyers, he responded that he liked them. Citing past speeches, specifically the Don Feder speech, Tuffile said he feels the security measures are necessary.

“It was a disaster. I don’t have a problem with people when they protest, but it was ugly,” he said.

Thomas, the Republican Club vice president, gave opening remarks and thanked everyone for attending the speech, stating that Horowitz’s presence would hopefully facilitate conversation and debate.

Thomas explained why the Republican Club chose Horowitz.

“David Horowitz has been a strong proponent of free speech on campus,” he said.

Horowitz also provided an outlet for the club to display a more conservative speaker.

“You may remember Ms. Meghan McCain, who brought a more independent viewpoint [coming to campus.] Surprisingly for some, she wasn’t conservative enough,” said Thomas.

Next to speak was Derek Khanna, the president of the Republican Club. Khanna spoke of Horowitz’s lack of political correctness and the need for such in the University environment. Khanna spoke of not being able to call his country a “she,” and said, “Today, we live in a society where use of the word ‘niggardly’ requires an apology,” which the audience greeted with hissing sounds.

As he took the stage, Horowitz began his speech with an attack on liberals.

“Universities were set up to be free institutions that taxpayers pay for. It is due to out of control spending on faculty and out of control governmental loans that tuition costs are so much,” said Horowitz.

He went on to call college professors lazy, claiming they only work “nine hours a week, eight months out of the year.”

He continued to claim that professors generally represent just one side of the aisle politically. Horowitz sat in on a 90 minute civil liberties class during Tuesday’s classes, which he felt did not show multiple viewpoints on the subject.

“The professor tried to sell students on the decency of the Supreme Court, and denied them key information,” he said, furthering that he believes an educator’s job should entail “teaching you how to think, not what to think.”

Midway through his speech, Horowitz spoke on an educational department with which his views are commonly connoted. Horowitz said that women’s studies departments’ goals are to “make students into radical feminists.”

On the issues of gender and racial hierarchies in society, Horowitz claimed such inequities do not exist in America. He also said, to much audience protest, that the women’s studies department “doesn’t actually care about women,” because of genital mutilation occurring in Islamic cultures.

Horowitz expanded on his view of education stating that “the entire liberal arts college cannot give you a good education.” The only department Horowitz felt was of value was the engineering college, because through science, he believes the department presents facts without political slant.

Horowitz also told the crowd his views on religion. He deemed Muslims radicals, citing a poll claiming ten percent of Muslims agreed with jihad, or holy war. Making numerous comparisons to Nazi Germany, Horowitz called the Islamic jihad worse.

“Islamists are worse than the Nazis, because even the Nazis did not tell the world that they want to exterminate the Jews,” he said. In another comparison to Nazis, he added, “there are good Muslims and bad Muslims just like there were good Germans and bad Germans.”

After an hour of speaking, Horowitz took questions. Numerous students asked him about the conflict between Israel and Palestine, to which Horowitz responded heatedly, “The Palestinians are Nazis. Every one of their elected officials are terrorists.”

He spoke of how the countries in the Middle East were created and had no right to the lands that now make up Israel. “The Jews were attacked. They had every right to expel every Arab from both Israel and, when they were attacked in ‘67, from the West Bank.”

Zamil Akhtar, president of the UMass Muslim Student Association, spoke of how every Muslim, himself included, did not support the jihad, and said, “You said that you had not heard Muslims condemn the jihad. I can show you hundreds of Muslim scholars that disagree.”

“You also spoke of genital mutilation,” added Akhtar, “which is not a part of the culture – of my culture – as you said.”

Horowitz asked if Akhtar would denounce Hamas, to which Akhtar responded he would, and retorted by asking Horowitz if he would denounce Ann Coulter’s Islamophobic remarks, to which he responded, “It was a very apt satire.”

On the differences between sex and gender, UMass student Ashley Lesperance tried to explain the differences between gender and sex.

“Gender is defined as socially constructed to oppress women, versus sex which is what you are born with, gender is what is in fact socially constructed,” Lesperance told Horowitz.

Horowitz retorted by referencing former Harvard President Larry Summers, who drew criticism when he claimed women had lesser scientific abilities than women.

“Women possibly have a lower aptitude for math and science than men. And that’s a gender difference. Women have a lower aptitude in mathematics than men, and that is a scientific fact,” said Horowitz.

After a 30 minute question-and-answer of agitated remarks between the protesters and Horowitz, he told audience members lined at the microphone that he was finished answering questions and was escorted out of the room by his bodyguard.

Michelle Williams can be reached at mnwillia@student.umass.edu

Rabbi Nachum Shifren

Rabbi Nachum Shifren is a West Bank Settler, a teacher in the Los Angeles educational system and a surfer. The last time he came to the attention of the media was for his books on surfing and spirituality.  He implied then that he wasn’t into politics, Denise Dowling of Salon.com wrote at the time,

The Surfing Rabbi will talk religion, but not politics. If pressed on his views, it’s evident how he earned the nickname “Shifty.” “My politics are not germane to what I’m doing,” he demurs. “All I’m about is surfing.”

Yet even then there were hints that he was deeply political and that his allegiance was to extreme right-wing Zionist ideology,

Yet he opted to reside in Kfar Tapuah, a West Bank settlement perched a half-hour from the “lousy” Mediterranean surf. Kfar Tapuah is considered an extremely militant, right-wing, anti-government stronghold. “I’d compare its residents to white militants in the United States,” says Hagit Yaari, an Israeli spokesperson for Americans for Peace.

Kfar Tapuah is the settlement where Israeli police recently arrested an remorseless extremist Jewish settler who was killing Palestinians. Now Rabbi Shifren is running to be a State Senator in California and what he is saying doesn’t reflect the peaceful rhythms of the Ocean but instead reflects a hateful ideologue filled with bigotry against Islam. I haven’t investigated his past statements thoroughly but there is no need to waste time to find his views, his most recent article sums it up quite directly.

Shifren writes on a recent student protest at UC Irvine where 11 students were arrested for protesting the visit of Israel’s Ambassador to America, Michael Oren on the grounds that he represents a government which perpetrates “war crimes, violates international law, and subjugates and oppresses Palestinians.” Shifren believes that they will get off too lightly and he wants them jailed and expelled from the university.

In an article he penned, Cal. Senatorial Candidate Responds to Muslim Hooliganism, Rabbi Shifren writes that the protesters weren’t just “rude, and disrespectful students” but they “are the front line of an army of Muslims that is waiting patiently to take over and subvert our country.”

The article doesn’t make a lot of sense a lot of the time but he goes on to repeat many of the stereotypical essentialist, paranoid, anti-Muslim statements that we are used to from Islamophobes,

For instance the canard that Muslims only respect strength,

The rule that we in the West refuse to acknowledge is simply that to the muslim, whoever is perceived as strong, will be feared and will survive; and whoever is seen as weak, irresolute, or wavering, will be despised and will be vanquished.

He also states that he believes we are at war with Islam,

This will be a hard bullet for America to bite, but we are at war with Islam! Those who deny this are quislings or fifth-columnists — and very often, university professors and chancellors. With strong leadership, there would be no notions of “academic freedom” for those who come here to subvert and destroy.

These students weren’t just protesters but according to Rabbi Shifren are “Muslim terrorists-in-training,” who are “breeding” like crazy on our university campuses,

Make no mistake: these students are the probing squads that are testing the waters to see what they can get away with, positioning themselves to ultimately shut down the entire campus when they please. These are among the first salvos in a war that, until now, has been only academic and ideological — at least in this country.

If you want to see where we are headed, if we don’t find the courage to stand up to and defeat these muslim terrorists-in-training, just look to France, Spain, England and other countries where muslims have been allowed to get a toe-hold. Or consider the carnage caused by just one insane muslim terrorist at Fort Hood, then multiply that many times over, as more muslim terrorists consolidate their power base in our country — and our state and their favorite breeding grounds, our campuses!

Hurry, the Mooslims are coming, the Mooslims are coming, in fact they are here!

Without strength of character in our leaders, and the courage of our people, we are poised to become just another chapter in history — right next to the debauched and pillaged societies of Greece and Rome. The muslim onslaught is at the gates; they are weary of our self-indulgence and they abhor our eroding social mores and valueless culture. They are sharpening the long knives, knowing that their time will come shortly.

Of course Rabbi Shifren thinks he has the “strength of character” to be a leader, but the reality seems to be he that he is not fit to be a teacher. Can one imagine him teaching a diverse classroom of students that includes Middle Easterners and Muslims? Can we trust him to to be respectful, even handed? In fact can we trust him to educate and open the minds of youth when the bigotry that he revels in indicates that his mind is narrow and constricted?

I urge readers to contact the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) to lodge a formal complaint that due to the preponderance of bigoted and hate filled comments by Rabbi Nachum Shifren he is not fit to teach in the school system and should be disciplined.

LAUSD information:

Address: 333 S. Beaudry Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90017
Phone: (213) 241-4131 (thanks Usman)

The Video from the Protest at UC Irvine of Israeli Ambassador, Michael Oren:

17 year old Meir David Kahane's Grandfather

From Richard Silverstein’s Tikun Olam.

Kahane Grandson Arrested in Torching Yasuf Mosque

Arutz Sheva, the settler’s news portal, reveals that Meir Kahane’s grandson, Meir David Kahane (which was also his grandfather’s full name), 17, was arrested and is a suspect in the arson attack on a West Bank mosque in the village of Yasuf.  The latter neighbors the radical Israeli settlement of Kfar Tapuach, where the young Kahane lives.  Both his grandfather and parents were murdered by Arab militants in separate incidents.

The Israeli police refused to name the suspect, though the Jerusalem Post identified him as a Kahane “relative.”  But Arutz Sheva seems less bound by such pledges of privacy and revealed the boy’s identity.

I should also remind readers that this is the same Kfar Tapuach where Kahane-wannabe Jewish terrorist, Ephraim Khantsis, was hanging out for the past four months telling anyone within earshot that Jack Teitel, another Israeli-American terrorist on trial for several acts of murder and maiming, was a good Jewish boy and the Palis only got what they deserved, etc., etc.  The IDF recently issued an order expelling Khantsis from the West Bank for six months.

Eden Natan Zenda, another Israeli Jewish terrorist who shot up an Israeli Arab bus and killed four, also lived in Kfar Tapuach after deserting from the IDF.  That place is a regular font of brotherly love.

Can we anticipate even bigger and better acts of hatred from the Kahane clan in the future?  Perhaps graduating from arson to murder to avenge their own parents’ murders?  Where will it all end?

H/t to Eileen Read.

There is a eye widening new documentary out called “Waiting for Armageddon” which explores the Faith and ideology that close to 50 million Americans hold dear to their hearts and which also has a tremendous effect on the foreign and domestic policy of the United States.

Waiting for Armageddon

By RONNIE SCHEIB

Doggedly nonjudgmental docu “Waiting for Armageddon” delves into the faith of some 50 million Americans (including more than one president), exposing the central role of Israel in end-of-days scenarios, their impact on the volatile situation in the Middle East, and the confluence of national policy with biblical prophecy. From interviews with families awaiting the imminent arrival of the Rapture to evangelical tours of Israel, where Texans reverently sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” over the Sea of Galilee, the pic explores beliefs as pervasive as they are largely unexamined. “Waiting,” which bowed Jan. 8 at Gotham’s Cinema Village, could spark strong urban response.

Filmmakers Kate Davis, Franco Sacchi and David Heilbroner structure their docu around the four stages of the apocalypse, each headed by numbered scriptural placards: 1) the Rapture, when, in a microsecond, all true believers, living and dead, will be transported into the clouds with Jesus; 2) the Tribulation, during which untold horrendous catastrophes, ecological and man-made, will rain down upon those haplessly “left behind”; 3) Armageddon, when Christ will return with a sword to judge the sinners and the blood will gush as “high as a horse’s bridle,” to quote one comely software engineer, and 4) the Millennium, encompassing the 1,000-year reign of heaven on earth reserved for Christ and his followers (along with 144,000 converted Jews).

Within this general framework, the filmmakers capture adherents calmly discussing “future history” at church, around the dinner table, at “Pre-Trib” conventions, at Christian telethons raising millions for Israel, and, especially, on junkets to the Holy Land.

The unlikely alliance between Christian evangelicals and right-wing Israelis is predicated on their shared conviction that Jerusalem must remain entirely in Jewish hands. The pic’s representative of the Israeli wing of this coalition is a sneer-afflicted rabbi (dismissing Jesus as a second-rate skirt-chaser), in charge of rebuilding the temple supposedly predestined to supplant the Muslim Dome of the Rock. In the words of a savvy political researcher, one of the pic’s few dissenting voices, the evangelicals “want the Muslims to be evicted by the Jews, the Jews to rebuild the temple of Solon and then Christ to return and trump everybody.”

Waiting” sometimes plays like Bill Maher’s “Religulous,” minus Maher’s snarky mediating p.o.v. In their zeal to not misrepresent evangelicals, the filmmakers tend to record every discussion in mind-numbing C-SPAN-like detail and, more problematically, sometimes unintentionally wind up enabling an evangelical agenda; a shot of men praying in a mosque inadvertently reads as an example of “Islamofascist” behavior.

Still, the docu’s open-endedness offers something for everyone. For believers, it provides a sympathetic portrait of sane, educated families coping with what they perceive as the suffering of the world. For Jews, it sounds a wake-up call to the dangers of supporting a faction that counts as necessary an Israeli future of wholesale destruction and a choice between conversion or death. Lastly, for unrepentantly cynical secularists, it serves up delicious ironies (one “saved” Christian’s barely disguised glee at the prospect of a front-row seat for the upcoming carnage).

Camera (color, HD), Sacchi, Davis; music, Gary Lionelli; sound, Heilbroner, Roberta Dougan, Rich Cutler. Reviewed on DVD, New York, Jan. 2, 2010. (In 2009 New York Jewish Film Festival.) Running time: 74 MIN.

In another case of what if they were Muslim, Israeli settlers spurred by a mandate from G-d attacked a West Bank Mosque, sprayed graffiti on it and burned Qurans inside of it. Of course this isn’t big news for most, and we will see the likes of Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer and Rabbi Jonathan Hausman either remain silent on this or somehow justify it. (hat tip: retaane)

Settlers attack West Bank Mosque and burn holy Muslim books

Suspected Jewish settlers today attacked a mosque in the northern West Bank, burning holy books and spraying threatening graffiti in Hebrew on the building, Palestinian officials and Israeli police said.

Extremists broke into the mosque in the village of Yasuf, near the city of Nablus, and burned Muslim holy books and prayers carpets, while sprayed slogans on the floor reading “Price tag – greetings from Effi.”

The so-called price tag is the Jewish settlers’ policy of attacking Palestinians and their property in retribution for any Israeli government curb on settlement expansion. Effi is a Jewish name.

The dawn attack appeared to be the work of hardline settlers furious that the right-wing government of Binyamin Netanyahu has given in to US pressure to try and enforce a temporary freeze on the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, where some 300,000 settlers live.
Related Links

While the attackers escaped, the Israeli government was quick to condemn the attack. “This is an extremist act geared toward harming the government’s efforts to advance the political process for the sake of Israel’s future,” said Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, whose department is overseeing the freeze.

When they discovered the desecration of their mosque, Palestinian villagers started throwing stones at Israeli soldiers, whom they often accuse of complicity with settlers when they carry out such attacks on them and their olive orchards. Two Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were hurt in the clashes.

There have been rising tensions since Mr Netanyahu announced the proposed freeze last month, in an effort to meet US and Palestinians demands for a total halt on settlement construction, deemed illegal by the international community but often backed by the Israeli state.

Thousands of angry settlers gathered for a demonstration close to the Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem this week, vowing to continue building and condemning Mr Natanyahu’s decision to bow to pressure from Barack Obama, the US president. They carried banners that said “Obama wants us frozen, God wants us chosen,” and “God’s Bible gave us this land.”

The settlers believe that the West Bank – which they call by its Biblical name, Judea and Samaria – should be part of a greater Israel, and are adamantly opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.

They have torn up freeze orders delivered by the Israeli authorities to settlements in the West Bank, and blocked inspectors trying to enforce the building ban. Last week at the settlement of Qedumim, close to Nablus, residents prevented inspectors from entering while cheering as trucks of building materials were brought in.

A right-wing cabinet minister said that the freeze was largely a sham and that the settler population could grow by as many as 3,000 people in the next 10 months, the period of the proposed moratorium.

“This is neither a freeze nor a suspension,” Benny Begin, the son of former prime minister Menachem Begin, told a conference in Tel Aviv, according to an Israeli newspaper. “Construction in Judea and Samaria will continue in the next 10 months.”

“We are … saying that we don’t intend to restrict or suspend new building permits,” he added.

And Mr Netanyahu has tried to temper anger by allocating special development grants to tens of thousands of the settlers, sparking anger from Mr Barak’s centrist Labour party, which has threatened to vote against the measure.

Recently we got some hate mail from someone calling themselves Baruch Goldstein. Obviously a reference to the Extremist Jewish settler who killed 30 Muslim worshippers at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron. It seems the ghost of Baruch Goldstein haunts us still and he came back from the dead to let us know what he thinks about Islam and our website.

Baruch Goldstein

Nice try at obfuscating the supremacist, genocidal ideology of islam from the actions carried out in its name.

I know Armenians that would rip your f**king head off Abdul.

He ends his polite email with the hallmark of the spirit of Goldstein, a call to violence. Goldstein (none of us are Abdul’s by the way), I know Armenians who would happily have a cup of tea with us here at LoonWatch and would rather not rip our heads off.

More myths about Barack Obama being a Mooslim and other nonsense from Tel Aviv streets documented by Max Blumenthal.

The Looniest Blogger Ever: Pamela Geller

The latest in Pamela Geller looniness. An odd assortment of semi-literate and semi-conscious hyperbole.

Her reaction to Obama’s surprise win of the Noble Prize?

Obama’s Embarrassing Nobel Prize

Obama won what? This is embarrassing. Who’s next? Bill Ayers? Stuart just pointed out this Nobel Fun Fact: This year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner (Our Esteemed President, peace be upon him) recently refused to meet with the winner of the 1989

Nobel Peace Prize (the Dalai Lama), in an attempt to suck up to China.

Of course Obama didn’t refuse to meet the Dalai Lama. Pamela, the self-proclaimed “greatest patriot” thinks it’s embarrassing that an American president wins the Noble Prize. She also continues the nutty theory of him being Muslim, by putting the honorific “peace be upon him” next to his title, as though that’s supposed to be some sort of put down. I say, yes, let there be peace upon him, nothing wrong with that.

Obama has sided with evil, abandoned the Jews, the Iranians, the Hondurans, the Eastern Europeans, capitalism, individual rights, American sovereignty — in under a year.

Obama is evil incarnate (sided with “Mooslims”), he is the cause of all the problems in the world. We are all victims of the insidious and ruthless guile of the one known as Barack Obama!

Some veiled racism from the queen of conspiracy theories, calling Obama a pimp who at the same time is funding “jihad” (Warning: Misspellings are Pamela’s).

Obama Pimps for Jihad Petrol Dollars

Part of Obama’s continuing plan tpo fund jihad

Here Pamela cheerleads for her close friend Robert Spencer and calls the German police “Nazi.” She links to an erroneous report at the wing-nut Israel News site that states, “American Islam Scholar Defies German Ban on Israeli Flag.” We actually covered that event and highlighted how Spencer was actually colluding with Euro supremacists. Also there was no ban on Israeli flags, nor is Spencer an Islam scholar.

Spencer Defied NaziGerman Police ban on Flying the Israeli Flag at Berlin Rally

Great piece and interview with Robert Spencer over at Israel National News:

American Islam Scholar Defies German Ban on Israeli Flag

by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

(IsraelNN.com) Robert Spencer, a scholar of Islamic history, theology and law, author, and the director of Jihad Watch, defied a German police ban on flying the Israeli flag at a Berlin gathering against anti-Semitism and Islamization on October 3, 2009. He discussed the incident with Israel National News on Thursday.

On Obama aiding the Iranians nuclear program,

This is unconscionable. And Obama is assisting the nuclear weaponization of Iran. The world has gone mad.

On Obama being an anti-Semite,

All last year, I documented the numerous, heinous calls for Jewish genocide, incitement to hate, and filthy Jew hatred on Obama’s election blog. He knows the anti-semites post these blood libels on his website. So why did he he retain the platform as President of the United States? It’s evil. Why does he encourage it with his silence?

Her support for the kooky “Stop the Islamization of Europe” group which promote the discredited Eurabia theory. A group which has ties to racists,  and amongst other things equates Islam with totalitarianism and clearly calls for the defacing of Muslim symbols.

Stop the Islamization of Europe Rally December 13-Spread the Word, Save the World

BANNED FROM PROTEST

…3. Totalitarian symbols such as nazi swastikas, communist hammer and sickles, Islamic star and crescent, UNLESS CLEARLY CROSSED OUT OR DEFACED WITH A STOP SIGN.

If I were being generous with Pamela I would say she blogs in stream of consciousness but I won’t because reading her writing is like hearing the babbling of a human infected with the rage disease, transformed into a zombie and foaming at the mouth.

The Looniest Blogger Ever: Pamela Geller

Pamela Geller, the Looniest Blogger in the World (though her “close friend” Robert Spencer calls her a “freedom fighter”) this past week called for the destruction of the Golden Dome, or as Muslims know it the–Mosque of the Rock–one of the holiest sites in Islam. A crazy notion which would probably provoke World War III and is only supported by the most hardline, right-wing, end-of-times Israeli and American Zionists. She also implies Islam is “evil.”

The dome has got to go. It is sitting atop the great Jewish temple. The dome has got to go. It’s time to push back and stop indulging evil. Evil is made possible by the sanction you give it. Withdraw your sanction (paraphrasing Rand).

The Golden "Dome of the Rock"

She also stated, per her modus operandi of painting all Mooslims guilty before proven innocent, that two “Middle Eastern men” who were taken off of a flight in Los Angeles were “terrorists.” She doesn’t know anything about the men, she doesn’t even know if they are Muslim, but she is all too happy to be judge-jury-and-executioner without any evidence. It reminds us of how she and her Islamophobe friends handled the Fathima Rifqa Bary case, insinuating that the parents were “evil,” and had “abused her,” shamelessly making up information as they went along.

In her piece titled, Jet Halted at LAX, Two Middle Eastern Men are Removed by Police she writes,

Were they Mormons? Christians? Jews? Hindus? Sikhs? Coptic Christians? Who is taking bets on who the terrorists are? I want some of that action.

In her crusade against Barack Obama, who she has proclaimed as “our first non-American Mooslim president” she continues the myth she has created that he is an “anti-Semite who loves it when Jews are hurt.” In this piece she claims that it is his fault that an Israeli Settler got shot. Can the unrelated-random-as-hell links and conclusions she creates between stories get any loonier?

They must be dancing in the White House. Looks like Obama’s policy is starting to bear fruit. Jews are hurt. Hurrah.

Where are the serious people in the right-wing to denounce this drivel, this incitement to hatred and violence? Instead of condemning Pamela Geller why are our elected officials giving her a platform to spout her vitriolic nonsense, straight from the sewers of New York? Why do self-proclaimed scholars on Islam such as Robert Spencer and Andrew Bostom continue to lend her insanity credence thereby destroying whatever slender base of credibility they had? It is most likely because of the shared hatred that can be gleaned from their writings for Islam and Muslims, a hatred they attempt to mask in a thin veneer of false objectivity.

Haredi Protester

About a month ago the Jerusalem municipality decided to open a parking lot in the city, a normal affair anywhere in the world but tensions arose when they decided to open it on Saturday, the Jewish holy day, and allowed it to be open for business on Saturdays thereafter. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, or Haredim took offense to this as a desecration to the holy day when observant Jews are not allowed to do any work including such things as turning on and off light switches. Animosity between the city and the Haredim had already been high when the city arrested a Haredi woman who was accused of starving her child, a son of 4 who was only 15 pounds.

The case of the parking lot has gotten much attention in the media, with scenes of wailing, robed men in beards and big Russian hats yelling at Police and throwing stones at cars. Anne Barker of ABC was asked to cover the riots and the demonstrations against the parking lot, but it seems she did not bargain for the kind of abuse and degradation she was about face. In a harrowing account, Barker reports how she was verbally assaulted, showered with spit, and kicked by a mob of Haredi protesters,

As a journalist I’ve covered more than my share of protests. Political protests in Canberra. Unions protesting for better conditions. Angry, loud protests against governments, or against perceived abuses of human rights.

I’ve been at violent rallies in East Timor. I’ve had rocks and metal darts thrown my way. I’ve come up against riot police.

But I have to admit no protest – indeed no story in my career – has distressed me in the way I was distressed at a protest in Jerusalem on Saturday involving several hundred ultra-Orthodox Jews.

This particular protest has been going on for weeks.

Orthodox Jews are angry at the local council’s decision to open a municipal carpark on Saturdays – or Shabbat, the day of rest for Jews.

It’s a day when Jews are not supposed to do anything resembling work, which can include something as simple as flicking a switch, turning on a light or driving.

So even opening a simple carpark to accommodate the increasing number of tourists visiting Jerusalem’s Old City is highly offensive to Orthodox Jews because it’s seen as a desecration of the Shabbat, by encouraging people to drive.

I was aware that earlier protests had erupted into violence on previous weekends – Orthodox Jews throwing rocks at police, or setting rubbish bins alight, even throwing dirty nappies or rotting rubbish at anyone they perceive to be desecrating the Shabbat.

But I never expected their anger would be directed at me.

I was mindful I would need to dress conservatively and keep out of harm’s way. But I made my mistake when I parked the car and started walking towards the protest, not fully sure which street was which.

By the time I realised I’d come up the wrong street it was too late.

I suddenly found myself in the thick of the protest – in the midst of hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews in their long coats and sable-fur hats.

They might be supremely religious, but their behaviour – to me – was far from charitable or benevolent.

As the protest became noisier and the crowd began yelling, I took my recorder and microphone out of my bag to record the sound.

Suddenly the crowd turned on me, screaming in my face. Dozens of angry men began spitting on me.

Spit like rain

I found myself herded against a brick wall as they kept on spitting – on my face, my hair, my clothes, my arms.

It was like rain, coming at me from all directions – hitting my recorder, my bag, my shoes, even my glasses.

Big gobs of spit landed on me like heavy raindrops. I could even smell it as it fell on my face.

Somewhere behind me – I didn’t see him – a man on a stairway either kicked me in the head or knocked something heavy against me.

I wasn’t even sure why the mob was angry with me. Was it because I was a journalist? Or a woman? Because I wasn’t Jewish in an Orthodox area? Was I not dressed conservatively enough?

In fact, I was later told, it was because using a tape-recorder is itself a desecration of the Shabbat even though I’m not Jewish and don’t observe the Sabbath.

It was lucky that I don’t speak Yiddish. At least I was spared the knowledge of whatever filth they were screaming at me.

As I tried to get away I found myself up against the line of riot police blocking the crowd from going any further.

Reassurance

Israeli police in their flak jackets and helmets, with rifles and shields, were yelling just as loudly back at the protesting crowd.

I found them something of a reassurance against the angry, spitting mob.

I was allowed through, away from the main protest, although there were still Orthodox Jews on the other side, some of whom also yelled at me, in English, to take my recorder away.

Normally I should have stayed on the sidelines to watch the protest develop.

But when you’ve suffered the humiliation and degradation of being spat on so many times – and you’re covered in other people’s spit – it’s not easy to put it to the back of your mind and get on with the job.

I left down a side street and walked the long way back to the car, struggling to hold back the tears.

What would be the reaction of the anti-Muslim blogosphere if the rioters in Jerusalem were not Ultra-Orthodox Jews but rather were Muslims? Wouldn’t they be in an uproar or at least gleefully extolling how evil Islam is, how the tenents of Islam and 9th century Muslim Law books sanction such non-sensical violence against innocents? Will they now in the name of consistency to their methodology of guilt by association and selective employment of texts blame Judaism for the behavior of the mob of Haredi protesters against this reporter who was humiliated and degraded? One would hope not as it is clear that the behavior of these protesters has nothing to do with Judaism, but per their track record it seems the loonie haters might be capable of doing anything at this point.

Islamophobes purposefully mistook these girls as child brides

The Loon world was whipped into a frenzy based on, as usual, the reinforcing winds of ignorance and hate. In what was meant to be an unremarkable story, Tim Marshall a reporter for Sky News blogged on a mass wedding celebration in the Gaza Strip officiated by  Hamas. Marshall reports in his excellent blog Islamophobia. Ignorance or Propaganda?,

The party is for 450 grooms, the brides are elsewhere, some among the 5,000 or so guests. It’s the way things are done here, Personally I’m for the mixing of the sexes, but I’m not about to argue, I’m outnumbered.

Up on the stage there’s music and dancing. Everyone’s having a good time, even me, although the Hamas robocops are making me a little nervous. Sure Hamas have cold blooded killers among them, sure they support the murder of children in Israel, sure they are cracking down on women’s rights, but many of their supporters are just ordinary people. And they need a break…Then the fireworks explode, the cheering begins, and in march the Hamas scouts, bashing drums, looking every inch the future Hamas fighters many will be. Then the grooms, aged about 18 to about 28. They are holding hands with their young nieces and cousins, little girls aged from about 3 to 8, made up to the nines, wearing white wedding dresses.

So what has gotten the Loon world completely riled up? Well it seems that many of the anti-Muslims misconstrued the occasion and thought the grooms were actually marrying the little girls who were their nieces or cousins! Tim Marshall explains,

Our report on this put it into context saying that it took place just a mile from the Israeli border and was a message from Hamas about its strength confidence and future fighters. Oh and that the brides were elsewhere. Pretty straightforward.

It never struck me for a moment that the little girls might later be described in the bloggersphere as the brides! How naive I am.

Dozens, and I mean dozens, of websites took the video of the event and wrote lurid stories about Hamas mass paedophilia with headlines about ’450 child brides’, and endless copy about how disgusting this was, how it showed how depraved Islam is, et al, ad infinitum. Site after site jumped on the story, linking from one totally wrong load of rubbish to the next. I’ll give credit to Tundra Tabloids who at least took down the video, but most sites just ploughed on regardless.

So which sites are these, and what have the various reactions been? Bartholomew gives us a hint,

The many websites that picked this up have responded in various ways: some issuing corrections, some quickly deleting their postings, and some insisting that it’s all true and that Marshall is trying to cover up the fact: “Why”, demands one site “would Tim Marshall defend the Gaza pedophiles?” One of the sites that decided to scrub was Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch, which is worth noting as Spencer claims some sort of academic expertise on Islam.

Where does this collective hallucination and fixation on fiction originate from? The simple, straight forward answer is that it comes from the collective hysterical hatred shared by those who despise Islam and Muslims. It is a manifestation of Islamophobia, “ie. an irrational fear of Islam.” It springs from the idea that Islam is evil, inherently backwards, oppressive to women. The talking point goes, “Muhammad was a pedophile who married 9 year old A’isha and these vile Mooslims must be doing it now on this massive scale!” George Readings puts this into some context in a recent post on The Spitoons (via Bartholemew),

The “argument” goes that Muslims believe Muhammad to be a perfect model for behaviour and therefore the fact of Muhammad’s marriage to A’isha somehow proves Islam to be a depraved religion…This attempt to aggressively apply a modern British definition of paedophilia to seventh century Arabia strikes me as a sign of severe anthropological illiteracy…

…Marriage to a pre-pubescant child with whom consummation occurs upon reaching puberty is not a model most people would be happy with in the modern world (although Bolivia sets the age of consent at puberty).

Which is probably why nearly all Muslim countries have reformed these rules beyond recognition. The age of consent in Algeria and Malaysia is 16, in Indonesia it is 19 for males and 16 for females. In Egypt it’s 18 for both and Tunisia 20. Reform has not, however, come to Saudi Arabia. Back in April the world followed the case of a mother trying to obtain a divorce for her eight-year-old daughter who had been married off by her father to a friend he owed a debt. In the end she succeeded and now there is even talk of Saudi Arabia preventing marriage before the age of 18.

Poor Tim Marshall scoured the net in an attempt to let the Islamophobes know that they had gotten it wrong but what was the result?

I spent a few hours visiting websites and leaving comments where I could. To little avail. Instead I received a steady stream of vitriol. The best response was on a site run by a Debbie Schlussel . The guy who posted it said he wasn’t interested in the detail. The detail being the fact that the girls weren’t the brides.

It showed how much some people want to believe nonsense like this, as it re-inforces their prejudices, always a comfortably fun thing to do. But Hamas, and the jihadists do enough terrible things without having to make things up about them. Most of the stuff I read was outright, unthinking, gleeful, Islamophobia from people who clearly knew nothing about Arab popular culture. It’s as is they really beleive that because there are examples of child brides, it means all weddings are with child brides.

Debbie Schlussel is not new to LoonWatch readers, her doozy looniness is par for the course, so Tim shouldn’t worry, but he hit the nail on the head when he wrote, “It showed how much some people want to believe nonsense like this, as it re-inforces their prejudices, always a comfortably fun thing to do.” This is exactly the case — loaded with a bagful of prejudice and preconceived notions the Islamophobes took the wedding to be an affirmation of their pre-set conjectures.

When they were presented with the fact that they had stupendously erred some corrected themselves  while others went into denial. It almost reminds you of some Biblical literalists who believe the world is 6,000 years old, you can present them with all the overwhelming evidence that point to the fact that the world is many millions of times older but they will stubbornly hold on to their literal interepretation of the Bible. This is not much different, and serves as a sweeping manifestation of the kind of irrationality that ignorance coupled with hate can produce.