Jews, lies and olive trees

Posted on August 21, 2015 by Victor Rosenthal

The war against the Jewish people and their state is being fought in military, diplomatic and information theaters. In the information battles, the ammunition used against us is lies.

Sometimes they are big, reality-inverting ones, such as the lie that Israel is a colonial power oppressing ‘indigenous Palestinians’, when the truth is that the Jewish people are indigenous to the land of Israel and have a moral and legal right to it. Sometimes they are medium sized ones, repeated over and over until they are believed, such as the statement that “settlements are illegal under international law.” And sometimes they are little ones, a flood of many little lies meant to demonize us and create sympathy for our enemies.

So, for example here is one (h/t J. E. Dyer):

Olive tree tweetOlive trees are a favorite metaphor for reality-inversion. It is suggested that ‘Palestinians’ belong to the land like hundred-year old trees, and evil Jewish ‘settlers’ commit genocide against them just as they do against the deeply-rooted ‘Palestinian people’. Never mind that both the invaders and genocide fans – not to mention the environmental destroyers – here are Arabs, not Jews.

But this is not an example of arboreal genocide. If you look at the picture you will see that the tree has been pruned and the root ball carefully preserved. Getting the tree out with the root ball intact is a big job, requiring both manual digging and heavy equipment. If you wanted to destroy an olive tree you could just take a chain saw to it.

No, what is happening here is that the tree is being transplanted. Here is a picture of the same thing taken from the website of a California company that specializes in transplanting mature olive trees:

Olive tree transplantAlmost every year a similar lie makes the rounds, about destroying trees. Here is a picture that is supposed to show an olive tree that had been mutilated by ‘settlers’:

Tree allegedly destroyed by settlersFunny how neatly it was cut, carefully leaving some shoots. And here is one, in Greece, that was just pruned, as is usually done once a year as part of the routine cultivation of olive trees:

Pruned olive tree

Does this look similar?

The surprising thing is how often all of these lies, from the biggest to the smallest, are uncritically repeated by our own people, Jews and Israelis. Why are they prepared to believe the worst about themselves, often on flimsy, contradictory or nonexistent evidence?

Shabbat shalom!

Posted in Information war, Israel and Palestinian Arabs | 2 Comments

Who’s indigenous here?

Posted on August 21, 2015 by Victor Rosenthal

Take up the White Man’s burden, The savage wars of peace—
Fill full the mouth of Famine And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly Bring all your hopes to nought. – Rudyard Kipling, 1899

The other day I was talking with friends and the discussion turned to the unique situation of Israel as a nation-state that constantly has to justify its existence. Other countries may be engaged in struggles over who will be the dictator, president or ruling party, but I can’t think of another one whose very being is controversial.

For example, last year Iranian ‘Supreme Leader’ Ali Khamenei called for the destruction of the “barbaric, wolflike & infanticidal regime of Israel” and the dispersal of the Jews that had emigrated to Israel from some other place:

All the original people of Palestine including Muslims, Christians and Jews wherever they are, in Palestine or in refugee camps in other countries or just anywhere else take part in a public and organized referendum. Naturally the Jewish immigrants who have been persuaded into emigration to Palestine do not have the right to take part in the referendum. …

the ensuing government … will decide whether the non-Palestinian emigrants … can continue living in Palestine or should return to their home countries.

This is illuminating, because it exposes the narrative that underlies most anti-Israel arguments. You know, when you say “Israel is completely legitimate under international law” and they say “who cares, you stole Palestinian land and colonized the indigenous inhabitants.”

That is the line that always ends the discussion. Israel is gay-friendly? Who cares, you are just bringing that up to distract us from your crimes against the Palestinian people. Israel is a democracy? Who cares, it’s built on someone else’s property. Because Israel is said to be a “settler-colonial state,” a European interloper parasitizing an indigenous Middle Eastern people, we have no moral or legal right to be here.

In the 19th century, colonialism was considered legitimate. “Take up the White Man’s burden,” wrote Kipling, and do the natives a favor despite their often violently-expressed ingratitude. But today, there is no greater national sin than exploitation of indigenous peoples.

There is only one small flaw in this argument, so beloved by leftists and academics: the Jewish people are indigenous to the Land of Israel, and the so-called ‘Palestinians’ are the colonists, invaders and occupiers of other people’s land. Like so much of their rhetoric, Arabs calling themselves ‘indigenous’ to our land is a precise inversion of reality, an employment of the big lie technique.

Here is one modern definition of ‘indigenous people’ (from Jose R. Martinez Cobo):

Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing on those territories, or parts of them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal system.

This historical continuity may consist of the continuation, for an extended period reaching into the present of one or more of the following factors:

  • Occupation of ancestral lands, or at least of part of them
  • Common ancestry with the original occupants of these lands
  • Culture in general, or in specific manifestations (such as religion, living under a tribal system, membership of an indigenous community, dress, means of livelihood, lifestyle, etc.)
  • Language (whether used as the only language, as mother-tongue, as the habitual means of communication at home or in the family, or as the main, preferred, habitual, general or normal language)
  • Residence in certain parts of the country, or in certain regions of the world
  • Other relevant factors.

The Jewish people in Israel are occupying their ancestral lands, and they have a common ancestry with the only ‘original inhabitants’ that still exist as a people. There are no more Philistines, Jebusites, Hivites, etc. (despite the fantasies of the Arabs). There are still Jews, with a religion, culture and language whose connection to the original inhabitants is well-documented.

It is true that the Jewish population of Israel and Judea fluctuated throughout the centuries, as the land was invaded and colonized by Romans, Arabs, Ottomans, British, etc. But the continuity was unbroken while the Jewish people suffered the vicissitudes of an indigenous people oppressed by colonial powers. Some Jews remained in the land and others went into exile throughout the world, but our peoplehood persisted.

The Arabs consider Western support for the establishment of a Jewish state a colonialist usurpation of their indigenous rights. But in fact it was the recognition, by Balfour and others, of the truly indigenous status of the Jewish people that justified the formalization of the Jewish people’s right to the land, from the river to the sea, which was ultimately expressed by the Mandate for Palestine.

The Mandate for the first time concretized our moral right to the land as its historical owners into a legal right under international law. It is ironic that Israel, whose right to exist is seen as controversial, actually has a stronger moral and legal justification for its sovereignty than others – like Jordan, truly created by colonial fiat, or Saudi Arabia, the product of violent conquest.

On the other hand, the so-called ‘Palestinians’ – although they make wild claims to be descended from ‘original’ inhabitants like Canaanites or Philistines – are primarily descendents of people who migrated into the land, a few going back as far as the Arab conquest in the 7th century. Most of them, however, arrived after Muhammad Ali’s expedition from Egypt into Syria around 1830; and the migration accelerated after the Zionists began to improve and develop the land in the 1880s.

Jewish nationalism has existed for thousands of years. But a strictly ‘Palestinian’ consciousness did not develop among the Arabs in the region until they began to confront what they saw as the threat of Jewish sovereignty in the early 20th century; and even then, much of the opposition to a Jewish state was based on a more diffuse Arab nationalism. A distinct Palestinian people didn’t emerge until the mid-1960s with the advent of the PLO. And the central tenet of ‘Palestinian’ culture is its violent hatred for and struggle against Jewish sovereignty.

Yasser Arafat and others have done their best to deny Jewish provenance in the land of Israel, claiming that there was no Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, and so forth. But the archaeological evidence – which continues to be discovered – is overwhelming, despite pseudo-academic attempts to refute it.

Unfortunately, it’s not only our enemies who have adopted the upside-down narrative of indigenous Arabs and colonizing Jews. When our own government rests its argument for our continued presence in Judea and Samaria on security considerations rather than our moral and legal right to the land, it is as if someone has stolen your car and then asks to keep it because he needs a car to drive to work.

When our own government agrees to limit construction in certain parts of the land of Israel or agrees that any ‘settlements’ we keep after a peace agreement must be swapped for other bits of land, the implication is that we do not truly own the land even though we control it. But while we certainly may decide that we want to waive the right to some of our land in the interest of peace – assuming that this is possible – we are not morally obligated to do so.

The Europeans, with a history of being colonial oppressors, smugly insist that we are morally obligated to give away part (or all) of our country. But we are not them. Although some of our ancestors were exiled to Europe and other places, we did not give up our peoplehood in exile. We belong to the land of Israel and it belongs to us.

The Zionists did not arrive as colonists from Europe after 1945 and dispossess the long-rooted Palestinian people, as their narrative tells us. The true story is that Jews were here all along, an oppressed and colonized indigenous people like many others. One of our distinctions, though, is that we succeeded in throwing out the European colonialists and achieving the self-determination that is the highest political goal of an indigenous people.

Now it’s up to us to keep it against those, like Khamenei, who wish to end it.

Posted in Information war | Comments Off on Who’s indigenous here?

Liberal Jews afraid to oppose Iran deal

Posted on August 18, 2015 by Victor Rosenthal

As many of you know, I returned to live in Israel a year ago after 26 years in the place I consider my beloved hometown, Fresno California, located in the large valley that runs down the center of the state. It is more or less equidistant from Los Angeles and San Francisco; politically it is on a different planet. Its establishment is solidly socially and politically conservative, although Democrats have a slight edge in voter registration. The main industries are agriculture and related occupations, and there is a branch of the California State University known for its business and ag schools. Fresno was the home of noted writer William Saroyan and also a number of surprisingly good poets.

Fresno has a tiny Jewish community, no more than 1000 families in a metropolitan area of about a half million people. On several occasions I was told that I was the first Jew my interlocutor had met. I never noticed anyone checking for horns, though.

There is a Reform Temple with about 350 adult members, a much smaller Conservative congregation and a Chabad house. There are several churches on any non-residential block, including Catholic, several kinds of Orthodox, and countless Protestant denominations.

The three Congressmen representing the Fresno area are two Republicans (Jeff Denham and Devin Nunes) and one Democrat, Jim Costa. The Republicans are opposed to the nuclear deal with Iran, but Costa is still undecided. As part of its campaign against the deal, AIPAC is holding ‘townhall’ meetings with its members and undecided congresspersons. Tonight there will be such a meeting with Jim Costa in Fresno.

It will take place in an Evangelical church, the Cornerstone Church of Pastor Jim Franklin.

This seemed strange to me. Why would AIPAC hold a meeting in a church, one which happens to be located in downtown Fresno about as far from most of the Jewish population as possible? Oh, it’s a great facility, modern and attractive, and Franklin is one of the most solidly pro-Israel people you will find anywhere. But aren’t most of AIPAC’s members Jewish?

Temple Beth Israel, the Reform congregation, also a large modern facility, located on the other side of town, would seem to be the appropriate place. But the event is not being held there, and in fact the Temple decided not to move its scheduled board meeting from this evening, which will make it difficult for the board members to attend the AIPAC event. When I inquired, I was told that the rabbi felt the Iran issue would be “too divisive” for the Temple.

You can smell the fear. This is what American liberal Judaism has come to.

AIPAC is a non-partisan organization whose objective is to lobby American politicians in support of Israel. Until recently American Jews have also supported Israel regardless of whether they were Democrats (most were) or Republicans.

But as the Democratic Party moved leftward – a move that sharply accelerated with the election of Barack Obama – Jews began to find themselves conflicted. The anti-Israel narrative formerly associated only with the extreme Left became more and more part of the conventional wisdom in liberal circles. An emblematic event took place at the Democratic National Convention in 2012 when language referring to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was removed and reinserted to a chorus of boos.

Now that Barack Obama has placed his prestige and authority on the line for the Iran deal which Israel (and AIPAC) strongly oppose, the conflict became even sharper. The Iran deal serves multiple purposes for the administration, such as advancing its goals of extracting the US from the Middle East and ending the era of American world leadership. It is also intended to weaken Israel, which it sees as a colonial power oppressing the real ‘owners’ of the Middle East. This project requires separating Israel from its traditional support in the US.

Obama and his people chose to play the Jew card. By presenting opponents of the deal as traitors and warmongers – and Jewish ones particularly as disloyal – the administration is trying to make pro-Israel expression uncomfortable, especially for Jews. When Obama talked about “tens millions of dollars in advertising” and “the same people who argued for the war in Iraq” they heard “Jewish money” and “Jewish neo-cons.” His thousands of surrogates on social media were far less subtle.

This strategy is having its desired effect. Liberal American Jews are being forced to choose between support for the Jewish homeland and what they perceive as loyalty to their country. The Reform movement as a whole preferred not to take a stand on the deal, and apparently the Fresno contingent sees it as too damaging to their fragile unity even to discuss. But this is exactly what they should discuss.

It’s interesting that a movement which values ‘involvement’ and ‘social action’ so strongly and which purports to favor open discussion and democracy above all, has fled from engagement with this particular issue, because it’s “too divisive.” This isn’t just hypocrisy. A big part of the problem is that American Jews have been manipulated by demagogic techniques that appealed to their deep-seated fear of the traditional antisemitic accusations of disloyalty.

AIPAC’s event will be held in an Evangelical church in Fresno because Evangelical Christians, in Fresno and in general, still have more courage to stand up for the survival of a Jewish state than Reform Jews.

Posted in American Jews, Iran | 5 Comments

A world without Israel

Posted on August 14, 2015 by Victor Rosenthal

Israel’s Independence wasn’t a foregone conclusion in 1948. Embargoed by the US and Britain, Israel was able to buy arms from Czechoslovakia, both before and after the communist coup in February, until Soviet policy changed at the end of 1948. What if Stalin had shut off the spigot in February? Would the Jews have succeeded in repelling the Arab armies?

Let’s suppose they hadn’t. What would an alternative universe without Israel be like?

***

In the alternate universe, southern Palestine and much of the coast was captured by the Egyptian Army, which rolled northward almost unopposed after its conquest of Kibbutz Negba. The British-officered Arab Legion and Iraqi irregulars drove west from Jerusalem, cutting the country in two at Kfar Saba, and attacking Tel Aviv from the north as the Egyptians approached from the south. Syrian troops captured the Galilee and moved toward Haifa.

In order to prevent a certain bloodbath, Ben-Gurion appealed to the UN Security Council, which passed a resolution in emergency session ‘temporarily’ dividing the country into zones administered by Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Britain. Protected Jewish enclaves were established within the zones, but the IDF was forced to give up its arms and the Jewish communities were subject to the authority of the occupying powers.

Most Jews quickly fled to the British sector, since the Arab authorities didn’t try very hard to control the reprisals by local Arabs against the Jewish population. The general feeling was that the Jews had started the war and should suffer the consequences. Those that had foreign passports and could flee, did. The British, having learned from experience, treated the Jews in their zone with a very firm hand, so as not to allow any resistance to develop. Membership in ‘terrorist’ organizations – any Jewish nationalist group – was punishable by death. Jews were not allowed to have weapons of any kind, and any organization thought of as ‘nationalist’ was outlawed.

Ben-Gurion was exiled to the US, where he was given a teaching job and watched carefully by the FBI, who considered him a communist sympathizer. Menachem Begin was killed ‘accidentally’ when the British raided an illegal meeting of the banned Herut party in Tel Aviv.

Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of Jewish “displaced persons” remained in camps in Europe. The camps took thirty years to empty out, with only trickles of refugees being taken in by Western nations. Some went to the Soviet Union where they were mostly swallowed up by the gulag or murdered because of their dangerous Western experiences (Stalin treated his own returning POWs similarly). Others returned to their home towns in Eastern Europe, often to be met with pogroms when the people who had taken over their property preferred not to give it back.

Pogroms also flared in Arab countries, as Jewish communities were punished for their alleged support for the ‘rebels’ in Palestine. Many had their property confiscated, and some were expelled. But where could they go?

The world simply had an excess of Jews that nobody wanted. The British or the Arabs would not allow any to enter their parts of Palestine, of course, even if there had been work and food for them there. In the US, there were voices calling for the country to take some of the refugees, but there was great opposition as well. After all, the country had not wanted to accept those trying to escape from Hitler! Now that they were not in danger of being exterminated, there was even less interest.

In fact, there was a significant rise in anti-Jewish feeling in America. Nobody likes a victim, especially if they feel that perhaps they were partly responsible for his victimization. But maybe the Jews were responsible for their own plight? Why did the Germans go to such lengths to hurt them if they weren’t in some sense a problem? And now they were always whining and begging for help. We have enough Jews, people said. Who needs more?

After the war, there had been a trend to open up American society to minorities. Returning soldiers and sailors had fought for their country, and wouldn’t accept discrimination any more. Even attitudes toward African and Asian Americans were changing, although it would take much longer for them than for the Italians, Irish and Poles.

But Jews – that was something else. They were a beaten people, and many felt that they had it coming to them. Nobody wanted them living in their neighborhood or going to school with their children. The anti-Jewish attitudes impinged on all Jews, even ones whose families had been in America for several generations.

Psychologically, Jews were damaged. Many were ashamed of being Jewish and tried (or succeeded) to assimilate. Judaism was mostly a religion of old people. There were attempts to start Jewish youth organizations, but the kids didn’t see the point. It was just bad luck that they were Jewish. They were bored with the stories of Jewish greatness thousands of years ago; Jews had tried to come back to their homeland not so long ago, and nothing came of it but more hatred and slaughter. They saw on TV and in their own lives what being Jewish meant.

When black Americans finally were able to struggle for their civil rights in the alternate universe, they didn’t have Jewish support. The Jews had their own problems, and they didn’t have the self-confidence or self-respect to fight for the rights of others. Anyway, who would take advice on obtaining their rights from people who’d lost theirs?

Postwar Europe and Britain were suffering economically. There were shortages of everything – food, housing, fuel, you name it. There was no sympathy for Jews, foreigners who didn’t belong anywhere, who were scrambling around trying to take food out of the mouths of legitimate French or English people. Many felt that they were the cause of the war that had wrecked their lives. So naturally every so often there would be a riot and some Jews would be beaten up, robbed or worse.

There were several organizations devoted to helping Jewish refugees, but they disliked and distrusted each other. Wealthy Jews, although they didn’t admit it, often despised the poor ones that they blamed for antisemitism. There was no one who spoke for the Jews, and no one that Jews could look up to for guidance.

Middle Eastern countries lined themselves up with the East or West in the cold war. Minor wars were common, despite the fact that there was no Israeli-Palestinian conflict – there were no ‘Palestinians’, of course. Refugees were usually Jews, and whenever there was a conflict they got the worst of it. When there were upheavals in the Mideast or Africa, Jewish populations often found themselves on the wrong side, even becoming victims of genocide in places like Yemen and Ethiopia. But nobody in the West was interested in getting involved in yet another Jewish disaster. Pogroms were unexceptional almost everywhere Jews remained.

A large population of Jews had existed in the Soviet Union. The government policy of repression of Judaism was successful; there was no one to bring them books or ritual objects, few synagogues, and little by little, as the older generation died off, so did Judaism. What remained was that people with Jewish-sounding names were still called “zhid” and denied good jobs or places at good universities. When the Soviet Union collapsed and there was violence and disorder, the Jews were victimized by all sides.

By 1960, the British were finally gone for good from Palestine, having been replaced in their zone by an American-backed UN administration, and the Arab occupied areas were annexed by their rulers. There was little organized Jewish opposition, and the minority of Jews that were left in the UN zone had to be protected by the American draftees who were stationed there and who served as ‘advisers’ in the multiple wars of the Middle East. At almost any time, there were conflicts between Sunni and Shiite, or Christian and Muslim, as well as the blocs aligned with the US or the Soviets. There were literally tens of terrorist militias operating in the always violent and chaotic region.

By the beginning of the 21st century there were only about 3 million people in the world that called themselves Jews, and few synagogues or other Jewish institutions. The twin plagues of genocide and assimilation ensured that the Jewish people that survived two painful exiles from its homeland would not survive a third.

***

Of course, this is all a bad dream. In the real universe, Czechoslovakia sold us arms, and the outnumbered defenders of Kibbutz Negba stopped the Egyptian tanks cold. The DP camps were emptied. Mizrachi Jews found refuge. The Jews of Yemen and Ethiopia were rescued. Soviet Jews were able to emigrate. And antisemitism was almost just a memory. The state of Israel is thriving, and has given the world numerous advances in culture, medicine and science since 1948.

But something else is happening now. A coalition against the Jewish state, a true “Axis of Evil” is forming, starting in Iran, passing through Europe and reaching Washington. As the Jewish state is threatened, diaspora Jews are also feeling the cold wind of Jew-hatred, not dead but just in suspended animation for all these years. The way these phenomena feed each other is striking.

This isn’t just about the Jewish people. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls recently said that France wouldn’t be France without its Jews. Well, neither would America and, in fact, neither would Western civilization. The contributions of the Jewish people and their state go far beyond the scientific products of the Technion and the Weizmann Institute, and the countless high-tech startups. There is a spiritual and moral contribution that has been flowing since biblical times.

If the West loses Israel, it will lose a big part of its soul.

Posted in Jew Hatred, War | 1 Comment

Accusations of Jewish terrorism are unfounded and dangerous

Posted on August 8, 2015 by Victor Rosenthal

The arson attack at the Arab village of Duma, near Shechem (Nablus) has so far taken two lives, including that of an 18-month old child. Two other members of the same family are in the hospital with severe burns.

The reaction in Israel has been one of horror, especially since it is generally thought that extremist Jewish ‘settlers’ were the perpetrators. Although usually words like ‘suspected’ are included, the clear implication is that it is just a question of finding the ‘settlers’ responsible for this shocking murder. Indeed, before an investigation even began, President Reuven Rivlin publically blamed “Jewish terrorists” for it. And he didn’t even say ‘suspected’.

The case has generated outrage in both the general public and politicians. The government immediately authorized the use of administrative detention – basically, imprisonment without trial – and more “aggressive interrogation methods” for Jewish extremists, and is already holding three of them.

But as yet, there has been no information released that there are any suspects in the Duma case, Arab or Jewish. And there is only one piece of evidence (that we know of) that points in the direction of Jewish extremists: Hebrew graffiti on one of the burned buildings.

It is important in a democratic state that we avoid rushing to judgment, especially in a case as emotionally charged as this one. Unfortunately, from what I read in the media and even hear in my own synagogue, we seem to have already done so.

In my last post, I wrote that there were good reasons for believing that extremist Jews might not be responsible. I think it’s important to explain them in detail.

So what do we know that points away from Jewish extremists? Much of the evidence comes from a young man, Yonadav Tapuchi, who visited Duma with a delegation from the Tag Meir organization, a group that opposes the ‘price tag’ (tag mechir) vandalism against Arabs perpetrated by Jewish extremists in Judea and Samaria. The residents showed the delegation the burned houses, and told their version of what had occurred.

Yonadav Tapuchi at Duma

Yonadav Tapuchi at Duma

Tapuchi’s whole account is worth reading, but here are the forensically important points:

…the two houses … are located in the center of the village, and that in order to get there we had to travel a number of minutes from the entrance. Duma is spread out over a gigantic area, and the houses are situated at the end of a winding road, among fences and yards.

According to the Duma version, the attackers burnt one house, then saw that it was empty, and so they went to set fire to the next house. The second house is enclosed by a fence, and the windows are covered by a dense lattice; a firebomb cannot be hurled through the windows, and in any event it is very hard to reach the windows behind the fence. The arsonists had to go around the house, enter the yard, and place the firebombs through the lattice. According to the Duma version, the attackers entered the house, stood over the parents and did not let them leave until the flames engulfed the house. Only then did the arsonists run away from the village.

If the attack was done for nationalistic reasons, why pick these particular houses? Why would the attackers expose themselves both coming into the village and – after the houses had burst into flames – leaving it, on foot no less? And why weren’t they caught? One would expect terrorists to pick a house near the entrance to the village, one with easy access to windows.

What about the graffiti, the sum total of evidence that the perpetrators were Jewish extremists? There were apparently two of them on the walls. One was the single word נקמה, revenge, with a star of David:

'Revenge', on the burnt house in Duma

‘Revenge’, on the burnt house in Duma

The other was a slogan that is associated with the Chabad movement, יחי המלך המשיח (the King Messiah lives) with a crown.

"The King Messiah lives" on a wall in Duma

“The King Messiah lives” on a wall in Duma

Let’s start with this. First, the ideology is wrong. The extremist ‘settler youth’ that is suspected of the crime are far from Chabadniks, and Chabad itself is strongly opposed to violent terrorism or even nonviolent vandalism. But the slogan, often associated with a crown, can be found all over Israel, on billboards and posters, and even as graffiti. Someone who knew nothing about Jews and wanted to find something that suggested “Jewish extremist” might pick this. Here is an example of a t-shirt bearing the legend:

Chabad T-shirt with "The King Messiah Lives" slogan and crown

Chabad T-shirt with “The King Messiah Lives” slogan and crown

Now look at the single word, revenge. This has appeared in several cases of (non-violent) “price tag” vandalism. Here is an example:

An example of "price tag" graffiti in another location

An example of “price tag” graffiti in another location

Note the way the letter koof, the second from right, appears in these images. I searched the web for images of Hebrew graffiti containing the letter, and none of them looked remotely like the example from Duma. Most looked like the second example. I don’t want to make too much of this, but combined with the other evidence, it is suggestive.

Another news article describes Arab media reports that the IDF “confiscated” security cameras from the village, implying that the village is not cooperating in the investigation. And it refers, unfortunately without giving a source, to “an ongoing 18-year feud between two clans in Duma.” Such feuds in Arab villages are not uncommon and are often quite violent.

I think the hypothesis that the arson and murders were committed by Arabs of a rival clan is no less likely – indeed probably more so – than that the perpetrators were Jewish extremists. In any case, based on what we know today, we can’t reasonably attribute the crime to anyone.

But I’ll go further: to say that “Jewish terrorists” or “settler extremists” committed the crime is an unwarranted accusation of murder, a case of sinat hinam, baseless hatred against right-wing Jews and residents of the territories. It is, in fact, an antisemitic blood libel. And using the unfounded accusation to justify the use of administrative detention or “aggressive interrogation methods” is reminiscent of the Reichstag fire.

I sincerely hope that very soon the investigation by the police and Internal Security Service will bear fruit. I know the culprits, no matter who they are, will be very severely punished. In the meantime, it would be best for our spiritual and political health to stop making accusations when all we have are hypotheses.

Posted in Duma arson-murder, Israel and Palestinian Arabs, Israeli Society, Terrorism | 3 Comments

The Jewish Sickness

Posted on August 7, 2015 by Victor Rosenthal

Israel’s Cabinet has authorized security officials to use “administrative detention” and “aggressive questioning” against suspected “Jewish terrorists,” following the arson attack at Duma that left an Arab baby dead and other family members in the hospital.

This was done against a background of national mea culpas by everyone from the President and Prime Minister on down, both for this crime and for the stabbing murder of a young girl and injuring of several others at the Jerusalem Gay Pride march.

All of this is happening despite the fact that there are as yet no suspects, Jewish or otherwise, for the Duma arson. It is also true that no connection can be demonstrated between homophobic murderer Yishai Schlissel and any Jewish nationalist movement or ideology.

The coincidence of two terrorist murders, one committed by a Jewish fanatic whom I would call ‘criminally insane’ and the other by unknown perpetrators capable of spraying graffiti on a wall in Hebrew, has given rise to a national paroxysm of guilt.

President Reuven Rivlin, in particular, connected the murders, attributing both to “incitement” and “hatred.” He accused “Jewish terrorists” of the Duma firebombing. He called for Israeli Jews to express their shame (for being Israeli Jews?):

On the eve of the 15th of the month of Av, the Jewish festival of love, six Israeli citizens were cruelly stabbed, in the heart of Jerusalem. To my great horror and shame, the letting of blood, the path of hatred and murder, did not stop there. Over the course of the same night, Jewish terrorists burned down the house of the Dawabsheh family in the village of Duma, killing their baby son Ali.

On Friday, I visited the family in Tel Hashomer hospital, I visited, silently, ashamed, ridden with dread for the power of hatred. Ashamed that in a country which has known the murder of Shalhevet Pass, of the Fogel family, of Adele Biton, of Eyal, Gil-ad, Naftali and Muhammad Abu Khdeir, there are still those who do not hesitate to ignite the flames, to burn the flesh of a baby, to increase the hatred and terror.

This morning a Hebrew poem appeared on Facebook in which the writer described removing the mezuzot from his doors, putting them and other Jewish ritual objects in a plastic bag and throwing them out in the street. Take your religion, I don’t want it, he wrote.

It is a little early for all of this. There are good reasons to suspect that the Duma arson may not have been perpetrated by Jews. In addition, there are many other cases – the alleged shooting of Mohammad al-Dura in 2000 stands out as particularly successful – in which Jews have been accused by Arabs of crimes that they did not commit. In particular, false accusations against ‘settlers’ are a major part of the demonization enterprise against the Jewish state.

Which brings me to actual misbehavior by extremist Jews, ranging from graffiti to arson (usually of unoccupied buildings): it needs to stop.

“Price tag” attacks and similar acts aren’t going to drive Muslims and Christians out of the land of Israel or make Arabs stop committing acts of terrorism against Jews. They do nothing for our side. They simply provide the best ammunition for the demonizers. Every actual incident is used as ‘proof’ that ten made-up ones occurred. Every one is claimed as justification for ten acts of Arab terrorism.

It needs to stop, but we don’t need to go overboard. I have been reading about a “Jewish underground” made up of “hilltop youth” – teens and twenties that want to overthrow the state and replace it with a kingdom governed according to halacha (Jewish law). This isn’t going to happen. It’s a fantasy and some of the fantasists have already been arrested. I could be wrong, but I am willing to bet they are not the ones that threw the firebombs in Duma. We’ll find out.

If I am wrong, if it turns out that these are the ones that burned the Arab child to death, I will retract my words and apologize. But at this point I see a nation unnecessarily bursting at the seams with hysterical guilt.

Let me add a few words about the maniac, Schlissel. He exists, and so do others that share his beliefs, although very few would take violent action on them. But Israeli society is not so different from others; people are regularly murdered for being homosexual in the US and other countries. The fact is that Israeli society as a whole is far more tolerant than most of the others; we have no need to engage in collective self-flagellation.

There is a pathology here, and it’s in addition to the pathology of Schlissel and of whomever is responsible for the Duma arson. It is a pathology of self-hatred, a need to find a reason to leave the country, to renounce Judaism, to apologize, to agonize, to be ashamed of ourselves, to blame the whole society for the crimes of a few.

It is a sickness, a Jewish sickness.

Pathological guilt isn’t a problem only because it leads to stupid Woody Allen movies. The demonization of the Jewish state by our enemies has a purpose: to provide reasons to oppose our self-defense, which is presented as just another war crime. By feeding and supporting it, which we do every time we apologize for yet another non-existent ‘crime’ – al Dura, the Gaza beach incidents of 2006 and 2014, shelling the Lebanese village of Kfar Kana in 2006, the Mavi Marmara affair, etc. – we participate in our own demonization, and amplify it.

The damage isn’t confined to the international arena. What other country is so obsessed, in its public discourse, journalism, art and literature, with its supposed moral failings? While other countries – think of Turkey or Russia – try to write embarrassing episodes out of history books, our historians, sometimes very creatively, look for sins to put in. We have a major newspaper – Ha’aretz – dedicated to besmirching our nation, every day. How many serious films made in Israel have you seen that don’t suggest that something is rotten here? What do most academic researchers in the social sciences and humanities prefer to write about? Do we even need to ask?

Possibly because of my American background, I am really attached to the principle that an accused is innocent until proven guilty. Here a crime is committed and before there is even any evidence, we fall over ourselves demanding that we be punished!

Naftali Bennett was right: stop apologizing. We don’t need the unearned guilt. We live in a great nation, which, like any other nation, has some bad people in it. Let’s punish the criminals, not the nation.

 

Posted in Duma arson-murder, Israeli Society | 6 Comments

After the nuclear deal, anything is possible

Posted on August 3, 2015 by Victor Rosenthal

Michael Crowley recently speculated that

Administration officials are exploring a Syria solution in which Iran would support the exit of Assad and his top lieutenants — a core rebel demand — while preserving a government infrastructure. Russia, which also backs Assad, would need to agree. So would Sunni Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, who supply arms and money to opposition fighters.

Let’s imagine how such a ‘solution’, given the Obama Administration’s proven track record at negotiation, might play out.

First, we can lose the part about the Sunni Arabs having to agree. They didn’t have to agree to the Iran deal, so why would the administration care now? The Turks couldn’t care less. They have already gotten what they want from Obama, permission to bomb the Kurds. As has happened at least three times since the 1920s, the West is betraying the Kurds, who will be kept from achieving the self-determination that would be uncomfortable for Turkey and Iran.

Mass murderer and chemical weapons enthusiast Bashar al-Assad would go into exile somewhere. Maybe he would even be allowed to keep a little piece of his former country as an enclave for himself and his loyalists. In any event, he would live happily ever after on his Swiss bank accounts, under the joint protection of the US, Russia and Iran.

A pro-Iranian puppet government, even less independent than that of Assad, would be established. This government would have to fight ‘terrorism’, which would be defined as any opposition to it – just like Assad does today. The difference would be that now the US as well as Iran and Russia would be on its side, maybe even providing air support. No need for those tacky barrel bombs or low-tech chlorine cylinders! This would be in the name of ‘stability’ and suppressing ISIS, of course. Too bad for the Syrian Sunnis that haven’t fled the country yet.

The deal would undoubtedly include a free hand for Iran in Lebanon, which would lose even the vestige of independence that it still possesses.

And why, Israel will be asked, shouldn’t it give the Golan Heights back to this new Syria? Surely it can be trusted with the US behind it.

My wife said this morning that if Obama and Kerry had negotiated the the Munich Pact, in addition to a piece of Czechoslovakia, Hitler would have gotten $150 billion (OK, slightly less in 1938 dollars), immunity to develop his V2 rocket program free of interference, and a promise that the West would overlook any future aggression (yes, this is in the Iran deal). A Syria deal would be like the Allies helping him set up the Vichy regime in France.

But after the nuclear deal, absolutely anything is possible.

Posted in Iran | Comments Off on After the nuclear deal, anything is possible

Dear President Abbas

Posted on August 1, 2015 by Victor Rosenthal

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is calling for an international commission of inquiry to investigate the terrorist attack, presumably by Jewish militants, that took the life of an 18-month old baby and severely injured his parents and siblings in the village of Duma, in Samaria.

Mahmoud Abbas
Palestinian Authority
Ramallah

Dear President Abbas,

I’m writing to express my horror at the vicious terror attack that occurred yesterday in Duma, and my hopes that the survivors will have a full and speedy recovery. I’m sure that virtually all Israelis join me in this.

You see, we know how you feel.

I can only imagine how the surviving members of the Dawabsha family feel, but there are countless remnants of Jewish families ripped apart by terrorism who don’t need to imagine.

For at least a hundred years, Palestinian Arabs have been murdering our children, our athletes (you personally know something about that one), our bus passengers, pizza eaters, disco-goers and random Jews in the wrong place at the wrong time. They’ve been shot, stabbed, blown up, beaten or burned to death, or had their throats slit. Whole families, like the Dawabshas, have been destroyed.

You have sent your bestial terrorist filth out to kill us and then welcomed them back, dripping blood, as heroes.

And it turns out, not so surprisingly, that we have bestial terrorist filth amongst us as well. What did you expect? After a hundred years of terrorism directed at us, some members of our nation have learned to imitate yours.

We’re human too. We have our criminals, our assassins, and even our terrorists. Of course we don’t treat them as heroes. We don’t broadcast incitement on our radio and television stations. Rabbis don’t exhort their congregations every Shabbat to go out and kill Arabs. We don’t hand out sweets when a murder is committed.

Our security forces will surely catch the perpetrators and our society will spit them out. They will be punished, perhaps even more severely than Arab terrorists. Terrorism is terrorism.

Good luck with the UN. I’m sure they will be happy to set up your commission of inquiry, something they’ve never done after any of the hundreds of incidents of murderous Arab terrorism.

Sincerely,

Abu Yehuda

Posted in Duma arson-murder, Terrorism | 2 Comments