A TIME TO SPEAK
Vol. III:12 (No. 36)
December 2003 - Kislev/Tevet 5764
THE PURSUIT OF INJUSTICE
Justice, justice shall you pursue . .
. . -- Deuteronomy 16:20
But let justice well
up like water,
Righteousness like an unfailing stream.
-- Amos 5:24
The obsessive hounding of Israel by governments,
organizations, public media, academics, and champions of higher morality is
untainted by any scintilla of justice. Protestations of humanitarian concern
for "the suffering Palestinians" are but skimpy camouflage for those who adopt
so historically spurious cause [see Issue No. 2] because it can be used against
the Jews. It is rare in such quarters to find any remotely comparable passion
for justice for Tibetans or Copts or other authentic victims.
It is no longer chic to pretend to be acting
for Israel's own good, out of benevolent certitude that that it would be better
off as a broken-spirited remnant of itself. The more candid and avant garde
position is to explain just why the world needs to rid itself of Israel altogether.
* * * * * * *
"The wicked envy and hate. It is their
way of admiring." -- Victor Hugo
Malice against Israel, spreading out now to
malice against Jews everywhere, is easy enough to distinguish from honest
disagreement or criticism. Simply check whether the allegations are true or
false, and whether the standards applied are balanced or unbalanced. Whether
they are rational or hysterical, disinterested or self-serving. And consider
whether they derive not from objective reality or from inner personal and
psychological compulsions.
The
Hate-the-Jews clique in Great Britain is observed by British journalist Julie
Burchill. She recently resigned from the staff of The Guardian,
the clique's most-favored newspaper, which published these two articles:
29
November 2003:
[.
. . . ] If there is one issue that has made me feel less loyal to my newspaper
over the past year, it has been what I, as a non-Jew, perceive to be a quite
striking bias against the state of Israel. [. . . .] I find this hard to
accept because, crucially, I don't swallow the modern liberal line that anti-Zionism
is entirely different from anti-semitism; the first good, the other bad.
Judeophobia
-- as the brilliant collection of essays 'A New Antisemitism? Debating
Judeophobia In 21st-Century Britain' (axt.org.uk), published this year,
points out - is a shape-shifting virus, as opposed to the straightforward
stereotypical prejudice applied to other groups (Irish stupid, Japanese
cruel, Germans humourless, etc). Jews historically have been blamed for
everything we might disapprove of [. . . .]
If
you take into account the theory that Jews are responsible for everything
nasty in the history of the world, and also the recent EU survey that found
60% of Europeans believe Israel is the biggest threat to peace in the world
today (hmm, I must have missed all those rabbis telling their flocks to go
out with bombs strapped to their bodies and blow up the nearest mosque), it's
a short jump to reckoning that it was obviously a bloody good thing that
the Nazis got rid of six million of the buggers. Perhaps this is why sales
of Mein Kampf are so buoyant, from the Middle Eastern bazaars unto
the Edgware Road, and why The Protocols of The Elders of Zion could
be found for sale at the recent Anti-racism Congress in Durban.
The
fact that many Gentiles and Arabs are rabidly Judeophobic, while many others
are as horrified by Judeophobia as by any other type of racism, makes me believe
that anti-semitism/Zionism is not a political position (otherwise the right
and the left, the PLO and the KKK, would not be able to unite so uniquely
in their hatred), but about how an individual feels about himself. [. . .
. ]
"The
Hate That Shames Us", 6 December 2003:
In 1967, Martin Luther King Jr published his "Letter To An Anti-Zionist Friend": 'Anti-Zionism is inherently anti-semitic, and ever will be. What is anti-Zionism? It is the denial to the Jewish people of a fundamental right that we justly claim for the people of Africa and freely accord all other nations of the globe. It is discrimination against Jews... because they are Jews. In short, it is anti-semitism.' MLK - what a mensch! . . . And this being so, no reason at all to be envious of the Jews.
[. . . . ] I have come to believe - looking at how anti-semitism is the only form of racial prejudice that unites both left and right, from the KKK to the PLO - that loathing the Jews is more about the personal than the political, despite the phoney, anticolonial cant of the anti-Zionists. For instance, I've noticed that some people use the Jews as a sort of warped magic mirror, accusing them of things that they themselves are obviously guilty of. [. . . . ]
So emboldened by the filthy free-for-all, the danse macabre of resurgent Judeophobia - attacks on Jews in this country have risen by 75% this year; and since 2000, there has been a 400% increase in attacks on synagogues - are the ignorant armies of darkness that even Germans are opening their yaps on a subject that you'd have thought they'd have the sense, if not the decency, to keep away from. [. . . .] And in a sort of Hate version of the Eurovision Song Contest, Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis weighed in with his carefully considered view that the Jews are at the root of all evil. [. . . . ]
To contemplate the thought processes of such individuals makes any decent person want to wash their hands until the slime of hypocritical hatred is swept away. But when whole sections of society peddle such lies, it's scarier still. And when carriers of the disease are shielded by those who govern us, you start to believe the lunatics have taken over the asylum: the EU's racism watchdog recently suppressed a report on the rise of anti-semitism because it concluded that Muslims were behind many incidents. What sort of world do we live in, when racism is "allowed" to be reported only if it comes from the white and the right? What about a stubborn, shimmering little thing called truth?
[. . . . ] Make no mistake, the Jews are not
hated because of Israel; they are hated for their very modernity, mobility,
lust for life and love of knowledge. Their most basic toast, "L'chaim!" (To
Life!), is a red rag to those who fetishise death because they have failed
to take any joy from their life on earth. "Not our Jews! Leave our Jews alone!
" yelled the locals who turned out to fight the Mosleyites in Cable Street.
It may be politically incorrect to call this ancient people "ours", but what
the hell: they're tough, they can take it. And they are still our Jews, in
that if they are wiped out, in Israel or anywhere else, we will be wiped out,
too, one day, all of the modern world and its achievements - swept back into
the Dark Ages mulch from whence we came. The cry of Cable Street still rings
true. Not our Jews! But, this time, "our" means mankind, and the very future
of our species.
* * * * * * *
In Europe, the vilification of Israel vindicates
2,000 years of brutal and bloody oppression of Jews. They have shown that
they deserved it, have they not? And it is a vent for resentment that while
Europe's own life-force runs thin, the despised Jews thrive in their own restored
and revived land and Israel ranks ahead of Europe in most fields of worthwhile
accomplishment. [See Issue 30]
Europe's
eagerness to sacrifice Israel for its own comfort and profit is explicated
by Bat Ye'or [Hebrew for Daughter of the Nile], an outstanding scholar of
Islam and especially of the institution of dhimmitude. Her account of the
creation of "Eurabia" is reported in The Jerusalem Post,
26 November 2003:
The anti-Semitism sweeping much of Europe is
a concentrated effort led by the political and intellectual elites of Europe,
driven by a pact between the European Community and the Arab League, Islamic
scholar Bat Ye'or told a gathering at the Hebrew University on Wednesday.
Following the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the ensuing
oil crisis launched by Arab countries, the French led the EC into the Euro-Arab
Dialogue (EAD). In return for granting Europe the right to develop the economic
possibilities of Arab lands and its oil, the EC (later the EU) agreed to align
itself with the Arab stance vis a vis Israel.
This meant a return to the 1949 armistice lines
(in opposition to UN Resolution 242) and support for a Palestinian state,
Arab sovereignty over Jerusalem, the PLO and Arafat, and an overall Arab agreement
with Israel instead of separate ones. [. . . .]
Over the years it has ushered in a complex set
of agreements that included mass immigration of Arabs to Europe, school textbooks
written under Islamic supervision, the teaching of the Arab language and
Islamic culture throughout Europe, and European recognition of the greatness
of Arab civilization.
[Bat-Ye'or] Egyptian-born and Swiss-based, is the world
authority on dhimma, literally 'protection,' the status of inferiority imposed
by Islamic civilization on Jews and Christians. In her groundbreaking works,
such as The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmutude,
she coined the term 'dhimmitude' - a state of mind 'so deeply internalized
that it escaped critical evaluation and invaded the realm of self-image.[.
. . .]'
In post-Christian Europe, a new cult of 'Palestinianism'
has been created, . . . From the moment the average European gets up in the
morning and turns on the radio he is bombarded by the message that the world
revolves around Palestine -- not on the Muslim-perpetuated genocide in the
Sudan, with its 2 million Christian and Animist victims, or any other ongoing
atrocity of a similar scale. Parallel to the massive TV and newspaper coverage,
books on Palestine make up a large part of the publishing industry.
On the theological front, Christianity is being
detached from its Jewish roots as the Jewish Jesus is replaced with an Arab
Palestinian one, emphasizing the traditional Muslim view that Jesus was a
Muslim prophet. Yet the dialogue of this Christian-Muslim symbiosis carefully
hides the Islamic belief that Jesus will come back to destroy the Christian
faith, . . .
She explained that Europeans feel that by declaring
war on terrorism after September 11, Bush endangered their own policy of buying
off Islamic terrorism by complying with Arab demands. By attacking Israel
and America they feel they can fend off Islamic terrorism on their home ground.
She similarly explained the wave of attacks
on Diaspora Jews following September 11 as an attempt by Europeans to protect
themselves from Arab reaction to the first break in European policy, in which
some European countries followed American policy against Islamic terrorism."
* * * * * * *
France
faithfully carries out its Eurabian duties, as described in excerpts from
"Sleeping With the Devil", by Olivier Guitta, Israel.Insider.com., 25 November
2003:
On the media scene, the French government allowed
Al Manar TV (the Hizbullah TV network) to broadcast in France its terrorist
propaganda. At the same time, on October 22, 2002 Al Manar won in France the
Oscar for best news reporting! "Al Manar is now broadcasting a virulent anti-Semitic
TV series called 'Diaspora.' "By legitimizing and helping such a network,
France is contributing actively to the spreading of hatred and anti-Semitic
messages to their masses.
[. . . . ] every French TV station (most of
them state-owned) and newspapers are uniting to portray Israel as the 'Big
Bad Wolf'. This constant representation and over coverage of the 'bloodthirsty'
Israelis killing the defenseless innocent Palestinians is building a climate
of hatred towards French Jews who are naturally identified as Israelis. Only
one version of the facts is constantly showed: the Israelis as oppressors
and the Palestinians as victims. There is no sympathy for Israelis being killed
by suicide bombers; these murderers are just freedom fighters and not terrorists
because their cause is just.
[. . . .] No other option is given to the French
public: the disinformation is total and when Israelis or Jews are invited
to speak, they happen to be from the Extreme Left and make a point into violently
attacking Israel and defending the Palestinian Authority. Even in books, no
place is given to shedding a positive light on Israel. For example, The Israeli information war by Joss Dray shows how Israel is supposedly
lying about Arafat being a Terror Master. It was selected by FNAC, the biggest
French book chain, as best International Affairs book. The French public has
no choice but to dislike Israel and side with the Arabs. [. . . .]
Beware, French anti-Semitism has turned into
a daily routine, a relentless ticking bomb . . . .
[Comment: The French public does in fact have
a choice. It does not have to be so gullible.]
In this diligently-cultivated atmosphere --
1] Arsonists burn down a Jewish school in Paris.
Monsieur Le President Jacques Chirac drops his insistence that there is no
anti-Semitism in France, and announces something must now be done about it:
To wit: The French government must spend billions of francs on improving living
conditions for disaffected Muslims who attack Jews.
2] A young man from a Muslim community in Paris
slashes the throat of a 23-year-old Jewish man, mutilates the corpse, and
reportedly tells his own mother "Now I can go to paradise. I've killed my
Jew." French police say the motive was not anti-Semitic.
Then they say the killer is too crazy to stand trial and release him! French
news media overlook the story.
3] Two young men from North Africa burst into
a shop owned by a Jewish widow. In the presence of her ten-year-old daughter
and a customer, they stab her 27 times. After they kill her, they leave without
committing theft. French news media overlook the story.
4] At a school near Paris, a gang of Muslim
boys severely beat an 11-year-old Jewish boy while
yelling "We'll finish Hitler's job." The headmaster did not expel or discipline
the boys, because the situation is "very complex".
* * * * * * *
Ambassador Giancarlo Chevallard, who represents the EU in Israel, very recently addressed a group of diplomatic correspondents in Tel-Aviv this week. He stated that he is "not willing to agree" that there is any rise in anti-Semitism in Europe. However, he does "know for a fact" that there has been a rise in attacks against Muslims.
* * * * * * *
The Geneva Initiative is aptly summed up by
columnist Charles Krauthammer: "This is not a peace treaty, it is a suicide
note". It Initiative is widely derided and/or dismissed because the arch-perpetrator
is assumed to be the unsavory Yossi Beilin, a private party who holds no public
office in Israel because he could not win one, and has absolutely no authority
or credentials to negotiate anything for Israel or to commit Israel to anything.
Yet this hoax is not really a private and therefore
insignificant mischief. It is the work, directly or indirectly, of European
governments using Beilin and his buddies as stooges to advance their own agenda
of breaking down Israel's sovereignty. They would not have invested in any
Initiative that they expected to be harmless to Israel.
Switzerland provided the name, the locale, and
most of the lavish funding. France and Belgium paid the bill for printing
and distributing copies to every household in Israel. The terms outlined in
the text were mainly concocted by Danny Levy, son of Michael, Lord Levy, Prime
Minister Tony Blair's Court Jew and Lord High Fundraiser.
Lord Levy himself publicly castigated all the
Jews in the world who would not co-sign the Geneva Suicide Note, and accused
them of Failing To Unite For Peace.
Meanwhile, the PLO announced that it took a
role in the farce just to create dissension within Israel and weaken its government.
* * * * * * *
"Justice between nations is for those
of equal power."
-- quoted by Thucydides
History of the Peloponessian War
By international law and by historical right,
Israel may dwell in the Land of Israel, and may exercise security control
even in areas imprudently given over to PLO administration [see Issues 6,
8]. Law and history are ignored or misrepresented in the drive to deny those
rights, under the pretense of defending "Palestinian territory" that does
not exist and has never existed. This extends to bestowing a false sanctity
on the 1949 ceasefire line --also called the Green Line -- even though it
was never meant to be a permanent border and was never recognized as one.
Nevertheless, that the Children of Israel should
dwell in the Land of Israel -- the internationally designated Jewish National
Home -- is presented as the intolerable offense of "settlement". It is abhorred
even by the government of a friendly nation that itself "settled" from Plymouth
Rock to Waikiki.
Also abhorrent is that Israel should put up
a fence in an effort to deter terrorists on their way to commit mass murder
of Israelis. The strategic value of the fence is debatable, but Israel's right
to this security measure is not legitimately debatable -- especially not
on the argument that it infringes on entirely imaginary "Palestinian territory",
or that Jewish lives must not be saved if that causes any inconvenience to
any "Palestinian". Meanwhile, it is reported that the US Military uses Israeli
technology for security fences around its bases in Iraq.
As penalty for its offenses, the US administration
has calculated and calibrated sums to be docked from loan guarantees allotted
to Israel. (These "guarantees" do not mean that the United States lends money
to Israel, only that it countersigns private bank loans. This is a very low-risk
formality, since Israel has never defaulted on a payment of debt.)
At the same time, US taxpayers are willy-nilly
bestowing a gift of some $100,000,000 a year on Arafat and the PLO, and have
been doing so since 1994. It is public knowledge that:
1] The PLO is a terrorist organization that
commits or attempts to commit acts of mass murder. The perpetrators may use
various names, but they are all under the command and supervision of Arafat.
2] Arafat and his select cronies have stolen
lavishly from the funds supplied by the United States, Europe and other donors,
that go not into assistance for their wretched subjects but into their own
bank accounts. Arafat himself has billions of dollars tucked away. His consort
spends $120,000 a month for her living expenses in Paris.
3] Every loss and grief suffered by America
or Americans is a cause for glee and celebration in PLO-land. Its official
clergy pray fervently for evil to befall America.
Not a penny is docked from Arafat's allowance.
* * * * * * *
The United Nations for almost 56 years watched
the Arab nations commit every known form of aggression and invent some new
ones in their obsessive compulsion to destroy Israel. Within the UN's own
chambers, they openly proclaim their determination to murder a member state,
and not once did the august assemblage murmur, "We would rather you do not
do that, if you please".
During the same period, it has proclaimed so
many condemnations of Israel -- once for the offense of planting trees --
that a visitor from another planet might well suppose it to be the most mighty
and ferocious criminal nation in all of human history. Even its fence to shut
out terrorists has been referred to the International Court of Justice in
The Hague, a tribunal that has never been asked to rule on the legality of
the Arab nations' wars to destroy Israel.
The United Nations talks a lot about Human Rights,
and holds numerous meetings and conferences to issue resolutions thereon.
It has not, however, found a way to fit Jews into the category of Human.
As in just one of the more recent example: The General Assembly overwhelming
endorsed a resolution calling for "protection of Palestinian children" --
though they need protection only from their own caregivers who deliberately
thrust them into harm's way. A resoluton calling for the "protection of Israeli
children" could not even get to the floor of the Assembly, although Israeli
babies and children are deliberately chosen as the targets of terrorists.
"The
U.N.'s Dirty Little Secret" by Anne Bayesfsky, Wall Street
Journal, 8 December 2003
Last week, the U.N. once again proved itself
incapable of rising to the moral challenges embraced in its founding Charter:
'tolerance,' 'the dignity and worth of the human person' and 'equal rights.'
A draft resolution on anti-Semitism--which would have been a first in the
U.N.'s 58-year history--was withdrawn in the face of Arab and Muslim opposition.
Daily incidents of anti-Semitic violence around
the globe are reported in the media. Yet while leaders of the Free World condemn
synagogue bombings in Turkey, firebombings of Jewish schools in France, and
the hate speech of Malaysia's president who now heads the Organization of
the Islamic Conference, the U.N. moves in the opposite direction, encouraging
the proliferation of this centuries-old hatred.
In marked contrast, other forms of intolerance
continue to consume the U.N.'s attention and resources. A special rapporteur
mandated by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights reports regularly to the U.N.
on 'discrimination against Muslims and Arab peoples in various parts of the
world' [. . . .] An entire 2003 Commission resolution 'combating defamation
of religions,' mentions only prejudice against Muslims, Arabs and Islam.
Condemnation of anti-Semitism--which ought to
be axiomatic--engenders controversy and intransigence at the U.N. At this
year's General Assembly, Ireland assumed the role of gatekeeper, slamming
the door in the face of a resolution to protect Jewish victims. Ireland has
shepherded resolutions on religious intolerance through U.N. bodies for nearly
20 years without introducing anti-Semitism. In mid-November current events
prompted demands in the Irish Parliament for an explanation of this omission
from Foreign Minister Brian Cowen. The shabby excuse offered at that time
was to sacrifice Jewish rights on the U.N.'s alter of 'consensus and a wide
level of co-sponsorship'.
In plain language, to Ireland, Arab and Muslim
opposition to condemning anti-Semitism meant . . . cut and run! [. . . .]
The behind-the-scenes story of this Machiavellian plot involves an Irish breach
of a deal struck between Foreign Minister Cowen and Israeli Foreign Minister
Silvan Shalom only two weeks ago. Israel agreed to drop efforts to include
'anti-Semitism' in the religious intolerance resolution in exchange for a
promise from Ireland to introduce a new resolution specifically on anti-Semitism.
But after the General Assembly's Third Committee adopted the resolution on
religious intolerance minus any reference to anti-Semitism, Ireland refused
to carry out its side of the bargain. [Ireland is now assuming the Presidency
of the European Union.]
From the common era to the modern age, genocidal
persecution of Jews has been justified by whichever label has served the perpetrator's
interests: Religion, race, ethnic origin or nationality have all functioned,
at one time or another as grounds for anti-Semitism. Ironically, the U.N.
today can find none of these grounds sufficient to launch the vital campaign
required to prevent the atrocities this hatred inspires. [. . . . ]
At the heart of the U.N.'s problem with anti-Semitism
lies rejection of the very idea of Jewish victimhood. Instead of ensuring
that victimhood brooks no discrimination, on Nov. 26 a resolution condemning
terrorist attacks on Israeli children failed to make it through the General
Assembly while one on Palestinian children was adopted with only four states
opposed. [. . . .]
The U.N. is an organization founded on the ashes
of the Jewish people, and whose core human rights principles were drafted
from the lessons of the Holocaust. [. . . .] In 1948 the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights declared, 'disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted
in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind.' Fifty-five
years later the outrage is gone, the silence of the U.N. when it comes to
anti-Semitism is deafening, and the only ones benefiting are those planning
future barbarous acts against Jews everywhere."
* * * * * * *
Learning
To Do Democracy
It has recently been discovered that there was a long-standing vision of U.S.policy to carve up the Land of Israel to invent a State of Palestine. A sub-clause of the vision, is that it should be a democracy. At Beir Zeit University, one of the institutes of higher learning that Israel established for Arab students in a previously university-free zone, students are diligently practicing how to do democracy.
This year's elections for 51 seats on the Student Council featured a two-day campaign for votes, with debates and marches to war-drums. The contending parties were those aligned with Arafat's Fatah movement, and those aligned with Hamas. The foremost, if not only, issue in the campaign for votes was which side had killed more Jews. There were no other issues raised in the campaign.
The Hamas candidates claimed that Beir Zeit students from their party had killed 125 Zionists, and gave a demonstration of their platform by setting up models of Israeli buses and blowing them up. The Fatah-candidates assured voters that its parties make "dozens of attacks" and were "striking every day", displayed miniature mock-ups of Israeli communities and then blew them up with fireworks. Hamas won 25 seats, Fatah 20, and the remaining 6 went to adherents of also-ran terrorist parties.
Practical experience for the kind of democracy that would be practiced in the visionary State of Palestine . . . .
END