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Helen Thomas Tells Jews to Go Back to Germany
By Jeanette Pryor
(Editor's Note: The Monday after this story hit the blogosphere, Helen Thomas "retired" amid a firestorm of controversy and demands for her resignation. Good riddance!)
On January 27, 1998, Yehuda Bauer, Director of Research at Yad Vashem, concluded his Holocaust commemoration address at the Bundestag in Germany with the following:
“Thou shalt not be a perpetrator.”
“Thou shalt not be a victim.”
“And Thou shalt never, but never be a bystander.”
It is remarkable that Bauer saved the strongest admonition for bystanders.
On Friday May 27, at the White House Jewish Heritage Celebration, Helen Thomas, the “dean” of the White House Press Corps, answered a journalist’s request for an opinion on Israel:
“Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine. Remember, these people are occupied and it’s their land…not German and not Poland.”
“So, where should they go?”
“Go home. Poland, Germany.”
“So, you think the Jews should go back to Poland and Germany?”
“And America and everywhere else.”
Helen Thomas is a perpetrator. Perpetrator, because the most important aspect of the War Against Israel is the war to erode American support for Israel, the war for public opinion. As in Vietnam, the press in America will bring about the fall of Israel and the annihilation of her people long before and more surely than those seeking the physical destruction of the Gaza blockade.
In spite of this, Helen does not fully explain the “why” of the Holocaust. Within hours of Thomas’ Reichstag-worthy revelation, the video evidence circled the globe. It is safe to assume that the people who come in daily contact with Helen knew what she said.
These journalists and reporters, as every educated American, have seen pictures of the Holocaust; they have probably looked in horror at images of the selection at Auschwitz, the mass-shootings in Ukraine, the portraits of Eichmann and Mengele. This contemplation probably led to self-reassuring oaths that, “Had I been there, I would have resisted. I would have spoken out. The Nazis were evil monsters. How could this have happened?”
Certainly, the White House Press Corps is full of those who have thus reacted to the Nazi Holocaust. And yet, they will sit down to dinner with Helen Thomas. They will continue to say, “Good Morning” to her and will treat her like an icon worthy of respect. She will stoop in her throne in the Press Corps galley. She will not be shunned in the halls of the White House, and senators and representatives will still curry her favor or, at the very worst, attribute her rant to notorious spunk.
This is why the Holocaust happened. A dozen average men and women weighed their careers against the consequence of protest and permitted the penetration of respectable society by anti-Semitism. The looming destruction of Israel is not to be attributed to hate-filled sectarian ideologues like Thomas, but to the reporters and journalists who will avoid nasty personal consequences, and refuse to treat her with the utter contempt she merits. If ever Eichmann and Mengele and Goebbels deserved to be shunned as enemies of civilization, then likewise, a woman pretending to exemplify investigative excellence while suppressing the truth of the Jews’ tri-millennial claim to a homeland in the Holy Land, ought to be ostracized by anyone with a conscience.
The path to the first Holocaust was that of politically justified anti-Semitism. Hitler began his crusade against the Jews under the pretext that they had caused, through self-interest, the defeat of Germany in the First World War. We, fleeing precipitously towards a Second “Final Solution,” witness a similar attempt to disguise racial hatred of the Jews as dissenting political opinion. We hear words such as “occupation, apartheid, human rights violations,” only because they camouflage an embarrassing, crass hatred. Penetration of respectable society by this “classy, political” anti-Semitism is the first step to genocide.
The choice to become a bystander faces each member of the White House Press Corps. Together, they should demand Helen Thomas’ expulsion from their midst, if they wish to retain their integrity and honor.
Should authorities refuse, for the obvious reason that anti-Semitism has been given the green light (no pun intended) by the example of the administration, then it is the personal responsibility of each member to treat the “Queen” and her supporters as they claim they would have treated the last batch of selectors who favored deporting the Jews to their “homeland” in the ovens of Poland.
World Regrets Deaths of Jihadists, Vilifies Israel
Posted by P. David Hornik
(WATCH ONBOARD VIDEO BELOW)
Much regret is being expressed about the deaths of the “activists” who were among those attacking Israeli naval commandos with knives, clubs, iron bars, chairs, and snatched handguns on the Mavi Marmara early Monday morning. The ship was one in a six-ship flotilla of Muslim and radical-Leftist anti-Israeli activists that was approaching Gaza with the expressed aim of breaking Israel’s naval blockade of the Strip and bringing purportedly badly needed humanitarian supplies. The Mavi Marmara was also known by the Israeli authorities to be the largest and most hostile ship in the flotilla.
Yet, either out of poor intelligence or naiveté on the part of their superiors, the commandos descended onto the ship unprepared, bearing only paintball rifles. It was only after several of them had already been severely injured and at least one of them thrown off the boat (see some of the brutality here) that the commandos finally got permission to open fire with their handguns and saved their comrades and themselves.
One of the soldiers said the scene on the deck “looked like the Ramallah lynch” of 2000, in which two off-duty Israeli soldiers strayed into the West Bank town of Ramallah and were horrifically lynched by an Arab mob. In that case there were only two soldiers and they were unable to defend themselves; but it would hardly have been regrettable if more soldiers had been able to come to their aid in time and killed as many of their attackers as was necessary to save their lives.
That is not to say the rioters aboard the Mavi Marmara—although their snatching and use of the handguns was a clear attempt to kill some of the soldiers—had any hope of prevailing over the commando force. What, then, in relentlessly attacking an elite military force mostly with knives, clubs, and the like, did the devout, “Allah Akbar”-chanting “activists” hope to accomplish? Clearly, that some of them would be “martyred” and thereby create yet another anti-Israeli international incident—at which, of course, they succeeded.
They succeeded even though the flotilla their ship was part of was organized by the IHH—a Turkish radical-Islamist organization that, as documented by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, closely cooperates with the Hamas rulers of Gaza and with global jihad networks in Chechnya, Bosnia, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan while having ties with Al-Qaeda.
They succeeded even though, four days ago on May 28, members of the flotilla were filmed chanting “Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Muhammad will return” (a reference to a seventh-century massacre of Jews by Muslims) along with songs of the mass-murderous “Palestinian intifada,” and saying “We are now waiting for one of two good things—to reach Gaza or to achieve martyrdom”; and even though, three days ago on May 29, organizers of the flotilla explicitly told Al Jazeera TV that they were aiming for a confrontation with Israel that would have maximal media coverage.
They succeeded even though it is incontrovertibly evident that the Mavi Marmara was warned by Israel—before the commando boarding—that it was “approaching an area of hostility which is under a naval blockade,” and was invited instead to peacefully dock at Israel’s Ashdod port, have the supplies it was carrying peacefully transferred to Gaza after security checks, and then have its passengers peacefully sail back to their home ports—to which the “martyrdom”-seeking, weapons-hoarding Mavi Marmara replied for all the world to hear: “Negative, negative. Our destination is Gaza.”
They succeeded even though, despite the usual accusations of Israel doing a poor public-relations job with this latest crisis, since May 25 the Israeli Foreign Ministry has posted information clearly refuting the myth of the “humanitarian crisis in Gaza” that was the ostensible justification for the flotilla, detailing instead the voluminous food, medical, building, electric, sanitation, and other supplies that regularly cross into Gaza from Israel.
But those are mere facts, something the world doesn’t want to be confused with when Palestinians, Arabs, or other Muslims manage to provoke yet another bloody media confrontation with Israel. And so, in absolutely de rigueur, numbingly predictable fashion, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon professed to be “shocked by reports of killing of people in boats carrying supply to Gaza,” Israel’s purported “friend” French president Nicolas Sarkozy condemned “the disproportionate use of force,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague said he “deplore[d] the loss of life,” the European Union called for a comprehensive inquiry into Israel’s actions, the UN Security Council was set to meet in emergency session—and so on ad nauseam.
This, of course, being relatively restrained compared to the Arab and Muslim world, where, for instance, Turks in Istanbul chanted “Israel you will drown in blood,” Israel’s “peace partner” Mahmoud Abbas condemned the “massacre” and proclaimed three days of mourning in the Palestinian Authority, Israeli-Arab Member of Knesset Mohammad Barakeh said “the crimes of the pirate government” were “beyond international and human law” and “tyrants like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak will find themselves in the suitable place in the garbage can of history,” and the noted humanitarian, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said, “All these acts indicate the end of the heinous and fake regime and will bring it closer to the end of its existence”—for which he can expect to be rewarded with his next invitation to address the UN.
Much was also made of the fact that the commando boarding was carried out in international waters—as if to introduce a new norm in international relations where, for instance, a ship carrying WMD cargo in the middle of the Atlantic would have to be allowed to sail all the way to U.S. territorial waters before it could be interdicted; as if interdictions in international waters of ships breaking embargos, carrying illegal weapons, and so on were not common occurrences—except, of course, when Israel, the pariah and “Jew among the nations,” dares to do it.
As for President Barack Obama, he reportedly postponed his Tuesday meeting with Netanyahu as the latter hurried back to Israel from Canada, and “expressed deep regret at the loss of life in today’s incident.” Netanyahu, for his part, also said he regretted the deaths while going so far as to affirm that Israeli troops have the right to defend themselves when their lives are in danger.
The ten or so knife-, club-, and gun-wielding jihadists killed aboard the Mavi Marmara will, then, be among the most regretted, apologized-for casualties in history, probably generating a greater total of “regret” than literally millions of unarmed civilians killed in the Congo and Sudan. Israel will again be dragged through the mud, its already threadbare legitimacy given yet another pounding. The sanctimonious hypocrisy of democratic leaders—who know just what they’d do if terrorist ships were speeding toward their waters and could, of course, handle the situation without a smidgeon of violence—is as always not pretty to see. Israel, however, has the strength to cope with the attacks, slanders, and vituperation, because it doesn’t have any choice.
Soldier: Activists came for war
(Video) Video footage shows brutal attack on troops on board Gaza-bound vessel; soldier says passengers fired at forces, beat them severely using metal bats, knives. ‘We landed barehanded, and they lynched us,’ he says
VIDEO - Video footage of the raid on the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara vessel shows activists on board brutally beating up troops with metal rods and chairs.
The video also shows one soldier being grabbed by some of the activists and being pushed down to the lower deck, sustaining serious wounds. Meanwhile, passengers on the ship kept on beating up the soldiers who landed on the vessel.
Following the takeover of the ship, soldiers displayed for the cameras the knives and other weapons used by the Gaza-bound activists in their attack.
One of the soldiers who took part in the raid and broke his hand in the clash recounted the moments of horror when he and his comrades were assaulted by about 30 activists on board.
“After every person came down (from the helicopter,) three or four guys grabbed a hold of him and simply beat him senseless. They lynched us. They were equipped with metal bats, knives, slingshots, and glass bottles. At some point we faced live fire by two guys,” he said.
“I was among the last to come down, and I saw the guys spread all over, each in another corner, with three or four people around each. I saw a soldier on the ground with two people beating the hell out of him. I pushed them off of him, and they moved on to me and started to beat me up with the poles. This is how I broke my hand apparently,” he said. “At the time I was not holding a weapon, just like everyone who came down from the rope barehanded and with our paintball guns on our backs.”
"We faced live ammunition"
“They came at me and assaulted me. I took them down to the ground. I took a few steps back and pulled out my paintball gun. They charged me while I fired at their legs,” he said. “One of the bats shattered the weapon, so I moved on to the handgun, so that I have something to hold. At that point my arm wasn’t functional.”
“I saw two of my guys lying on the floor. We were being fired at, with live ammunition, from the corridor. It was bullets. I spotted a muzzle, and one of us fired at the guy. We came in after that and he wasn’t there.”
“There were about 30 people there,” the soldier summed up. “They simply came for war. We came to talk to them, convince them to come down, yet with every person who came down, they simply charged."
Despite the video footage, Israel had been condemned worldwide over the raid, which claimed the lives of at least nine people. The events at sea also stirred great anger among Arab Israelis, who held rallies and waved PLO flags across the nation. Two police officers sustained light wounds in Umm al-Fahm, in northern Israel, after being stoned by locals.
Turkish Jihadists Attack Israel
By Phyllis Chesler
One may describe Hitler as a “vegetarian” (which he apparently was) but he was still a genocidally exterminationist Jew-hater whose relentless racism and imperial ambitions led to the death of more than 60 million people.
One may also describe the Turks on board the “freedom flotilla” (Orwell himself could not have suggested a better logo) as “humanitarian activists.” But they are still pro-terrorist Turkish jihadists whose mission was to kill Jews, one way or the other. This was a mission which aimed to further demonize the already shamefully tarnished reputation of the Jewish state. This mission planned to force a violent confrontation; were Israeli soldiers to dare defend themselves and if Muslims are therefore martyred—even better public relations, even better for international lawfare against the Israel.
The so-called “humanitarians,” at least on one boat, came armed with metal bars and knives. They were fighters, not pacifists, and they called out traditional Islamic battle cries: “[Remember] Khaibar, Khaibar, oh Jews! The army of Muhammad will return!” According to Palestinian Media Watch:
“Khaibar is the name of the last Jewish village defeated by Muhammad’s army in 628. Many Jews were killed in that battle, which marked the end of Jewish presence in Arabia. There are Muslims who see that as a precursor for future wars against Jews. At gatherings and rallies of extremists, this chant is often heard as a threat to Jews to expect to be defeated and killed again by Muslims.”
“[The above] video shows Israeli soldiers being beaten with long and heavy metal rods on one of the Turkish boats. Jeff Dunetz (“YidWithLid”) has a series of disturbing and informative videos in which we can see the planned nature and intensity of the Turkish-Palestinian violence against Israeli soldiers—an attack which involved stabbings, beatings, firebombing attempts, throwing soldiers overboard, etc.”
Earlier today, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said that the Turkish-led flotilla was:
“An armada of hate and violence in support of Hamas’ terror organization and was a premeditated and outrageous provocation. The organizers are well known for their ties with global jihad, Al-Qaeda, and Hamas. They have a history of arms smuggling and deadly terror. On board the ship we found weapons prepared in advance and used against our forces. The organizers intent was violent, their method was violent, and the results were unfortunately violent. Israel regrets any loss of life and did everything to avoid this outcome.”
Indeed, the death count currently stands at an estimated nine (mainly Turkish) dead and 34 wounded. Predictably, the Arab, European, and liberal media are viewing Israel as the vicious aggressor; as committing “obscene” acts. Al-Jazeera’s website calls what happened “a massacre.” They refer to the dead as “martyrs.”
Some say that the Israeli commandos could have used taser guns, rubber bullets, or simply sent far more soldiers onto each boat. But the Israelis initially boarded the boats armed with paintball guns. And one wonders: How many Israeli soldiers can fit on a boat? One Israeli now suggests that Israel should have surrounded all the boats, stopped them dead in their tracks, shot out their motors.
Said I: And then done what with them?
Said he: Negotiate.
Said I: Are you crazy? Negotiate with terrorists? And then feed them, house them, coddle them—terrorists who would not even agree to bring food and a note to Gilad Shalit? Incredibly, Israel has been doing just that, treating the wounded terrorists in Israeli hospitals and preparing to intern the remaining “activists” in air-conditioned tents in Ashdod.
Said he: There should have been better military planning.
I am sure that Monday morning quarterbacking is always more ingenious than what happens in the moment of battle. The problem is that, once again, the Israelis are being attacked for having defended themselves and the jihadists are still being seen as “martyrs.”
Why did Turkey attack Israel? How much Iranian support did they have? Turkey was once a haven for Jews in flight from the Christian Inquisition.
Once, long ago, Muslim Turkey gave asylum to Dona Gracia HaNasi, the noble and generous leader of the Jews who had fled from Christian Spain and Portugal. Dona Gracia, a widow, was the wealthiest Jew of her time and, after living in Italy, found final refuge in Constantinople in 1552. Some wealthy Jews still live in Turkey today—yes, despite the bombing of two Turkish synagogues in 2003. I wonder how safe they are and for how long.
As to women? Locked up in harems—but if they were lucky/most unlucky, perhaps in the Sultan’s own harem or seraglio. For example, in 1784, a French girl, Aimee Dubucq de Rivery, was kidnapped on the open seas by Algerian pirates who sold her into the Turkish Sultan’s harem. Aimee became known as “Naksh,” The Beautiful One, for her fair skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair. Improbably, incredibly, Aimee became the mother of the next Sultan, whose name was Sultan Mahmoud II, the Reformer. Some see the influence of the Sultan Valideh (The Veiled Sultan) in Selim’s letter of friendship to King Louis XVI—and in other pro-European gestures and customs.
Myths die hard. People still believe that Jews, Christians and other infidels lived safe and happy lives in Muslims lands. This is a Big Lie.
As a matter of historical fact, the Turks have a long and bloody history of cruelty and genocide. They colonized the entire Middle East, forced conversions or murdered those who resisted. Islamic gender and religious apartheid flourished.
To this day, the Turks continue to deny the Armenian genocide. And, the days of Kemal Ataturk are long gone. In the early 1920s, Ataturk imposed a secular democracy upon the Islamists and unveiled the women. Now, the Islamists are winning again: Women are veiling, honor killings are on the rise (both in Turkey and among Turks in Europe). Recently, a father and grandfather heartlessly buried a 16-year-old daughter and granddaughter alive for the “crime” of presumably talking to boys. I have also written about a great Turkish feminist hero, my friend Seyran Ates, here; Ates was shot for her work among Turkish immigrant girls and women in Berlin. Her 15-year-old client died. Ates, a lawyer, was left for dead—but miraculously survived.
And we nearly admitted Turkey into the European Union. One wonders if they would have intensified their anti-Israel Islamism had they been accepted as “Europeans,” or whether their candidacy was merely a calculated move in tandem with pre-existing pro-Iranian plans. For years, Turkey has opposed sanctioning Iran for its nuclear program. Turkey was among the first to congratulate Ahmadinejad on his re-election victory. During 2009, Turkey improved its economic ties to Iran.
I am waiting for the United Nations and for the United States to condemn this unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation.
Israel stations nuclear missile subs off Iran
By Uzi Mahnaimi in Tel Aviv
Three German-built Israeli submarines equipped with nuclear cruise missiles are to be deployed in the Gulf near the Iranian coastline.
The first has been sent in response to Israeli fears that ballistic missiles developed by Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, a political and military organisation in Lebanon, could hit sites in Israel, including air bases and missile launchers.
The submarines of Flotilla 7 — Dolphin, Tekuma and Leviathan — have visited the Gulf before. But the decision has now been taken to ensure a permanent presence of at least one of the vessels.
The flotilla’s commander, identified only as “Colonel O”, told an Israeli newspaper: “We are an underwater assault force. We’re operating deep and far, very far, from our borders.”
Each of the submarines has a crew of 35 to 50, commanded by a colonel capable of launching a nuclear cruise missile.
The vessels can remain at sea for about 50 days and stay submerged up to 1,150ft below the surface for at least a week. Some of the cruise missiles are equipped with the most advanced nuclear warheads in the Israeli arsenal.
The deployment is designed to act as a deterrent, gather intelligence and potentially to land Mossad agents. “We’re a solid base for collecting sensitive information, as we can stay for a long time in one place,” said a flotilla officer.
The submarines could be used if Iran continues its programme to produce a nuclear bomb. “The 1,500km range of the submarines’ cruise missiles can reach any target in Iran,” said a navy officer.
Apparently responding to the Israeli activity, an Iranian admiral said: “Anyone who wishes to do an evil act in the Persian Gulf will receive a forceful response from us.”
Israel’s urgent need to deter the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah alliance was demonstrated last month. Ehud Barak, the defence minister, was said to have shown President Barack Obama classified satellite images of a convoy of ballistic missiles leaving Syria on the way to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, will emphasise the danger to Obama in Washington this week.
Tel Aviv, Israel’s business and defence centre, remains the most threatened city in the world, said one expert. “There are more missiles per square foot targeting Tel Aviv than any other city,” he said.
Bill Ayers, Israel’s Latest Attacker
By P. David Hornik
“What a country. It makes me want to puke.” Thus spoke Bill Ayers, the former but unrepentant Weatherman terrorist who’s now a professor of education at the University of Illinois, in 2001. The country he had in mind was the United States. It’s a safe bet that people with his degree of America-hatred don’t like Israel, either. Indeed, Ayers has now joined 431 academics in signing an anti-Israeli petition.
Not surprisingly, it accuses Israel of apartheid—the ritual accusation of the Israel-hating crowd that dreams of Israel’s Jewish-majority government being forced to dissolve the way South Africa’s white-minority government was forced to. The petition also “urge[s] our colleagues, nationally, regionally, and internationally, to stand up against Israel’s ongoing scholasticide and to support the non-violent call for academic boycott, disinvestment, and sanctions.”
Soon after signing the petition Ayers, along with his wife and fellow former terrorist Bernadine Dohrn, was in Egypt, agitating to be allowed into Gaza to express “solidarity” with the Gazans and their leadership, Hamas.
It’s a testament to the irresistible pull, for people like Ayers and Dohrn, of terrorism directed at a democratic society—in their own case, the U.S., in Hamas’s, Israel. In a 1974 manifesto, Ayers, Dohrn, and two other coauthors wrote that “We are communist women and men…deeply affected by the historic events of our time in the struggle against U.S. imperialism.” Somehow, that morphs into sympathy for fanatically religious, socioculturally troglodyte Hamas—with the spilt blood of democratic citizens as the connecting glue.
Ayers’s antics are still of interest because of his close past connections with the current U.S. president. Ayers helped get Obama’s political career going in the mid-1990s by featuring him in meetings at his home. Ayers also appointed Obama as the first chairman of his school-reform group, Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and the two of them apparently worked closely together. There is even considerable evidence that Ayers ghost-wrote Obama’s 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father.
It was particularly Obama’s association with Ayers and with Obama’s longtime pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, that sparked fears that America was on the way to electing a radical president. Wright and Ayers were intensely worrisome from Israel’s standpoint, too. Ayers, for his part, accused Israel in a 2006 blog post of “invading” the New York public schools with its “elaborate, self-aggrandizing, and thoroughly dishonest story of itself…” Last month he said that “small little Israel… tends to make U.S. foreign policy” and called this a “disaster” and “something we could end.”
Were Israel’s fears that Obama would be influenced by such attitudes justified? It seemed that way for a while. As when, in his speech last June in Cairo, Obama found ways to relativize and mitigate all evils that occur in the Muslim world and referred only to Israeli settlements as an intolerable offense that “must stop,” and then continued (along with other members of his administration) to pound away on the settlements issue while referring only delicately and obliquely to the mounting domestic brutalities of the Iranian regime.
More recently, though, Obama and his administration have taken a softer line on Israel and allayed some of these fears. As Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren pointed out, the U.S. under Obama has in the past months backed Israel by opposing the Goldstone report and by pulling out of joint military maneuvers with Turkey after Turkey forced Israel out of them.
Reasons for the change could include Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s deft deflection of the administration’s pressures; Obama’s preoccupation with a host of other issues from health care to domestic terror to Afghanistan to Yemen; and perhaps even the evident intransigence and refusal to negotiate of Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas.
Ideally, however, the change would reflect Obama’s progress from an Ayers-type view of the world, in which the United States and Israel are its main troublemakers, to realism about the actual threats that civilization faces. On that score, though, Obama’s continued ineptitude in dealing with Tehran means it’s much too soon to celebrate. Israel, as the country most directly threatened by Iran’s nuclear drive, can only hope he can still shed the old myopia that led him to people like Ayers in the first place.
Obama’s War Against Israel
By Joel B. Pollak
There’s a joke making the rounds in my suburban Chicago neighborhood about the clash between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government: Why did Vice-President Joe Biden get angry when Israel embarrassed him by announcing new construction in Jerusalem’s Ramat Shlomo neighborhood? Because it’s usually Biden’s job to embarrass himself.
The joke has carried on far too long. The tension between the two governments is being stoked by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a deliberate attempt to weaken the coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. If Israel had committed a real foul, the Obama administration could have used a quiet threat of public condemnation to force Israeli concessions, and the Netanyahu government would have little choice but to comply.
Instead, the Obama administration has turned a public relations snafu into a public test of Israeli sovereignty, leaving the Netanyahu government little choice but to resist. The neighborhood where 1600 homes were to be built is not a remote outpost. It is mere meters from the Green Line, in a part of East Jerusalem that is actually west of the Old City. It is likely to remain part of Israel in any future Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
The timing of the administration’s attack is unfortunate, for two reasons. One is that Iran continues to move towards becoming a nuclear power. Each day the U.S. and Israel spend on the Ramat Shlomo question is a day wasted, a day that ought to have been spent dealing with our common enemy.
The second reason is that thousands of pro-Israel activists will arrive in Washington, D.C., next week for the AIPAC policy conference. The contrived crisis is a provocation, a message to the grassroots representing the pro-Israel majority of Americans that bipartisan support for Israel is over.
Too late, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has tried to undo the damage that her 45-minute tirade against Netanyahu has done. She denied this week that there was any crisis at all. Yet, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren–a historian who has chronicled the history of American involvement in the Middle East–has said that “Israel’s ties with the United States are in their worst crisis since 1975.” (Oren has since denied making that statement, but there can be little doubt that the sentiment is widely held among the Israeli leadership).
Riots broke out across Jerusalem yesterday, orchestrated by Palestinian leaders, who have linked the argument over settlement construction to Israel’s reconstruction of a synagogue in the Old City that was destroyed by Jordan after 1948. Their goal is to spark a third intifada by appealing to religious passions among Palestinians and throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds. If they succeed, the administration will not only have harmed U.S.-Israel ties, but it will also have sparked a new terrorist war that could threaten American interests.
As the White House escalates its attacks on Israel, the chorus of anti-Israel voices in Washington grows louder. In 2008, only 27 congressmen–almost all Democrats–could be found to vote against Israel’s Gaza offensive, Operation Cast Lead. In 2009, the anti-Israel ranks swelled to 39 in a vote on the Goldstone Report. And this year, 54 congressmen–all Democrats–signed a letter protesting the Israeli “blockade” of Gaza. Obama leads, and they follow.
The White House wants to make pro-Israel Americans decide: either an Israel within the 1949 armistice lines, or no Israel at all. It is a false choice, because the two options yield the same result. A forced retreat to the Green Line–rejected by U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, rejected by every previous U.S. President, and rejected over two decades of Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy–is an invitation to Israel’s enemies to press ever further.
It is time that pro-Israel activists turned the tables. We must make our elected officials decide: either continue with the current policy of appeasement, which finds new ways to separate the U.S. from Israel; or a policy of strength, which focuses on the values and interests the countries share. A world that is not safe for Jews and for Israel is not safe for America, either. That is the grim lesson of history and, under the Obama administration, we seem doomed to repeat it.
____________________
Joel B. Pollak is the Republican nominee for U.S. Congress in the 9th district of Illinois.
Blaming Israel First
By P. David Hornik
From Van Jones to Valerie Jarrett, the Obama has made a series of politically extreme personnel appointments that it has since come to regret. Its latest hire bids fair to continue the pattern. President Obama has appointed an “anti-Semitism czar,” Hannah Rosenthal, who appears singularly unqualified for the job. Her first target of criticism has not been an anti-Semitic exponent or event. Rather, it is Israel’s Jewish ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, who has drawn her ire for the offense of disparaging a liberal group with which Rosenthal has been affiliated.
Not surprisingly for a liberal-Democratic administration, Rosenthal has a liberal-Democratic background. She worked for the Department of Health and Human Services during the Clinton administration, and in 1992 and 1996 was a leader of the Wisconsin Clinton-Gore campaigns. From 2000 to 2005 she was executive director of the liberal Jewish Council for Public Affairs. More recently she’s been on the advisory council of the ostensibly “pro-Israel, pro-peace” J Street and JStreetPAC.
Ideally, it shouldn’t matter. Isn’t “to monitor and combat anti-Semitism”—from the “anti-Semitism czar’s” official job title—a bipartisan concern for Jews and a consensus concern for all decent people? Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Some Jews define themselves highly invidiously in opposition to other Jews. Rosenthal appears to be one of them.
As the Jewish Press noted in an editorial,
"Speaking several years ago on the sharp increase in anti-Semitic incidents in Europe after the outbreak of the Second Intifada, [Rosenthal] said:
‘I’ll tell you point-blank; I have two grown daughters, and I didn’t think that my kids were going to have to deal with the same anti-Semitism that I did as the daughter of Holocaust survivors. It’s a scary time, with people losing the ability to differentiate between a Jew, any Jew, and what’s going on in Israel.’”
As Michael Goldfarb observes,
“Parse that quote and it’s pretty clear what Rosenthal is saying—the Israelis have it coming, but the rest of the world needs to distinguish between the good progressive Jews who are not living on Palestinian land and the Israeli Jews who are committing daily atrocities in the name of colonialism and occupation.”
To that must be added Rosenthal’s affiliation, in itself, with J Street. Indeed, the Obama administration likes J Street and sent National Security Adviser James Jones to give the keynote address at its October conference. That doesn’t change the fact that J Street has taken strange positions such as favoring the staging of the anti-Semitic play Seven Jewish Children and the (abortive) appointment of the anti-Israeli diplomat Chas Freeman as chairman of the National Intelligence Council.
Or as Israeli ambassador Michael Oren recently put it, J Street is “a unique problem in that it not only opposes one policy of one Israeli government, it opposes all policies of all Israeli governments….” As Oren went on to note, that has included criticizing Israel’s campaign in Gaza last winter, calling to include Hamas in peace talks, failing to reject the Goldstone report, and opposing sanctions on Iran.
And it is Hannah Rosenthal’s recent criticism of Oren’s remarks that has prompted a storm of anger and protest from Israeli and U.S. officials as well as American Jewish leaders.
Last week Rosenthal told Israel’s left-wing daily Haaretz that Oren’s statements against J Street were “most unfortunate” and that Oren, who declined J Street’s invitation to speak at its October conference, “would have learned a lot” by participating.
In response, Haaretz reports in a subsequent article, “Senior Israeli officials told their American colleagues that it was unacceptable for an administration official to publicly criticize Israel’s ambassador over his relationship with Jewish organizations.”
For its part, “the White House asked the State Department to issue a clarification notice.” And “Alan Solow, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations and a confidant of…Obama issued a condemnation of Rosenthal’s remarks, casting doubt over her ability to fulfill her responsibilities as an opponent of anti-Semitism.”
While the complaints rightly focus on the inappropriateness of the anti-Semitism czar’s criticism of the Israeli ambassador, there is much else in Rosenthal’s quoted remarks to Haaretz that calls into question her suitability for her new post.
As when—apparently also in connection to Oren’s declining to address J Street—she “said she opposes blurring the lines between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel. ‘It is not 1939,’ she said. ‘We have the state of Israel. We have laws in countries that are holding people accountable.’” This appears oddly inane, since Oren has never accused J Street of anti-Semitism.
Or when she says:
“We need to have as many people coming together to try and put an end to this crisis, the matzav [i.e., Israel’s ongoing conflict with some of its neighbors] cannot continue—it’s unacceptable and that’s why I always paid my membership to AIPAC, but I have always paid my membership to Americans for Peace Now—because they all need to be supported and they all need to be at the table.”
Or:
“I lived in Israel in 1973 in the bomb shelters. I don’t want my kids or my grandchildren to have to ever come visit their homeland and to live in a bomb shelter—that is what I mean when I say the matzav…. Sometimes I wonder what it does to the psyche of people and children to know that they have to know where the nearest bomb shelter is—that’s not okay. As a peace loving person and as a Jew who wants my kids to feel comfortable here—I think that’s what I mean that the matzav cannot continue.”
It’s peculiarly muddled, but she seems to be saying that everyone should be open to, and ultimately embrace, a liberal-dovish view of Israel’s conflict with some of its neighbors, because then the conflict would go away. Finding the situation “unacceptable,” not wanting children to live near bomb shelters or even be exposed to them on a visit, is somehow connected to ending the conflict. In other words, it’s Jews—bad Jews like Oren, or the Israeli government—who are responsible for keeping it going.
For the anti-Semitism czar, the enemy of the Jews or at least of Israel is not the anti-Semites, the violent attackers of Israel, but the Jews themselves – or at least the bad ones who don’t embrace J Street’s outlook and even find it objectionable.
That means Rosenthal lacks exactly what she ought to have: a clear, reality-attuned grasp of the actual, grim situation of Jew-and Israel-hatred in today’s world. And it means the Obama administration has failed to make a wise choice even for the seemingly nonpartisan task of “monitoring and combating anti-Semitism.” Instead, it has appointed a left-wing partisan who promotes the liberal delusions that help anti-Semitism thrive.
