Ray Cook - As I See It

Israel, Zionism and the Media

Category: Other (Page 10 of 17)

As the next Gaza convoy sets out…

21/09/2010 / / 1 Comment

If those who organise humanitarian aid to Gaza via flotillas and other blockade-breaking adventures really are about the plight of the Palestinians, I have some news for them about Arabs and even other Palestinians persecuting their own.

True humanitarians would not ignore the behaviour of Lebanon, Jordan and Libya whilst highlighting the actions of Israel.

(H/T to Elder of Ziyon for all these stories)

The first story is about Libya.

Libya has implemented a program of taxing all of its Palestinian Arab residents.
According to Al Jazeera (Arabic), Palestinian Arabs in Libya are now forced to pay an annual fee of up to $1550, and they have to endure a host of new humiliations as well.

PalArabs have been banned from working in various jobs, including education. Relatives cannot visit them. Those who own cars are being taxed for more money than their monthly salaries. Travel documents are expiring and not being renewed, yet the Arab League does not allow Palestinian Arabs from obtaining passports from the countries they have lived in all their lives.

Residents note bitterly that all this is happening while Libya made a big show of sending a ship of aid to Gaza.
All of this is in contradiction with Libyan Law #10 of 1998 which was supposed to grant somewhat equal rights to Palestinian Arabs in that country.

This is from a country which egregiously sits on the UN Human Rights Council.

Next in the hall of infamy is Lebanon:

According to the Elder there are “well over 100,000 Gazans in Jordan with limited rights –  and no easy way to get out”.

Yes, Gazans. Gazans in a Jordanian open-air prison, Mr Cameron.

The Elder then quotes an Arab researcher called Oroub El Abed who has been documenting the plight of Palestinians:

Gazans in Jordan are doubly displaced refugees. Forced to move to Gaza as a result of the 1948 war, they fled once more when Israel occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967. Guesstimates of the number of Gazans in Jordan range between 118,000 and 150,000. A small number have entered the Jordanian citizenship scheme via naturalisation or have had the financial resources to acquire citizenship.

On arrival in Jordan, the ex-residents of Gaza were granted temporary Jordanian passports valid for two years but were not granted citizenship rights. The so-called ‘passport’ serves two purposes: it indicates to the Jordanian authorities that the Gazans and their dependents are temporary residents in Jordan and provides them with an international travel document (‘laissez-passer’) potentially enabling access to countries other than Jordan.

The ‘passport’ – which is expensive – has value as an international travel document only if receiving states permit the entry of temporary passport holders. Few countries admit them, because they have no official proof of citizenship. Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and some Gulf States are among those who refuse to honour the document. Any delay in renewing the temporary passport or in applying for one puts an individual at risk of becoming undocumented.

Since 1986 it has been harder for Gazans to compete for places in Jordanian universities as they must secure places within the 5% quota reserved for Arab foreigners. Entry to professions is blocked as Gazans are not allowed to register with professional societies/unions or to establish their own offices, firms or clinics. Only those with security clearance can gain private sector employment. Those who work in the informal sector are vulnerable to being exploited. Many Gazans are keen to leave Jordan to seek employment elsewhere but are constrained from doing so. Some have attempted to leave clandestinely.

Rami was brought up in Jordan, studied law and worked for over two years for a law firm in the West Bank city of Hebron. Lacking a West Bank Israeli-issued ID, he was forced to return to Jordan every three months to renew his visitor’s visa. Due to the high cost of living he returned to Jordan in 1999 only to find himself stripped of his Jordanian temporary passport. Now without any form of identity, he notes that “being Gazan in Jordan is like being guilty.”

In Jordan, as in most other Middle-Eastern countries, women cannot pass on their citizenship to their children. Neither is citizenship granted to a child born on the territory of a state from a foreign father. Married women are forced to depend on their fathers or husbands to process documents related to their children. Because of this patriarchal conception of citizenship, children of Jordanian women married to Gazans are at risk of being left without a legal existence.

Heba, a Jordanian national, married Ahmad, a Gazan with an Egyptian travel document. A year after their marriage, Ahmad was arrested for being in Jordan without a residence permit. Deported from Jordan, he was refused re-entry to Egypt and ended up in Sudan. Heba had a child but has been unable to register the birth due to the absence of her husband. She cannot afford to go to Sudan to be with him.

(emphasis by the Elder)

But there is more on Lebanon:

Hot on the heels of the slight easing of restrictions on professions that Arabs of Palestinian descent in Lebanon can practice, the Lebanese Forces (which are mostly Christian) are trying to ensure that PalArabs cannot live in Lebanese-owned homes:

The Lebanese Forces urged the government on Saturday to find a solution to Palestinian occupants of homes owned by Lebanese in villages east of the southern port city of Sidon.

While hailing parliament’s decision to grant Palestinians working rights, an LF statement said “the Lebanese government is urged to find a quick solution to the issue which has become an unacceptable burden.”

It said homes in Miyeh Miyeh, Darb al-Sim and other areas are occupied by Palestinians.

The government should adopt an effective solution to find alternative housing to them, the LF said.

The bigotry in Lebanon against Palestinian Arabs is so entrenched that it is not newsworthy. This isn’t about the PalArabs owning land – this is saying that they cannot even live outside camps, even if they are (apparently) paying for it!

The Elder also directs us to an article in PajamasMedia which he calls Palestinian Arab “apartheid” against – Palestinian Arabs.

Depending upon whose estimate you read, there are some twenty or thirty thousand “refugees” in the Balata refugee camp outside of Nablus. Balata is simultaneously the most populous and smallest of the Palestinian refugee camps — its growing population is confined to one square kilometer, making it one of the most densely populated and miserable places on the planet.

Any regime with an ounce of compassion would have shut Balata down and integrated its people into the surrounding community. Balata is a place without hope, a quagmire of despair, where the day-to-day misery of its inhabitants is partially ameliorated by Western charities and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA), while inadvertently building a culture of dependence.

Balata’s creation could ostensibly be laid at Israel’s doorstep, but its perpetuation cannot. The current residents of Balata are only refugees by a crude reworking of the meaning of the term. They themselves have fled from nothing, and sought refuge from nothing. They are the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of the people who fled or were expelled during the 1948 war.

If you want to use the term “apartheid” to characterize some aspect of Middle East politics, then Balata is a good place to apply it. It is the Palestinian Authority’s answer to Soweto.

The PA does not permit the children of Balata to go to local schools. It does not permit the people of Balata to build outside the one square kilometer. The people of Balata are prevented from voting in local elections, and the PA provides none of the funds for the necessary infrastructure of the camp — including sewers and roads.

Balata and the other refugee camps are showcases of contrived misery. They are Potemkin villages in reverse. Naïve peace activists and unsophisticated Western clergy are led through such camps to witness the refugee drama, with Israel conveniently and prominently cast in the role of villain.

(Elder’s emphasis)

Yet we always hear the media and Palestinian huggers everywhere banging on about Israeli apartheid.

 

And let’s not forget the Egyptians who, of course, are the forgotten jailers of the Gazans, after all, if you are complaining about freedom of movement of Gazans, then why don’t the Egyptians open the Rafah crossing for them?

Oroub El Abed writes that ‘Some 50,000 Palestinian refugees live in Egypt without UN assistance or protection and burdened by many restrictive laws and regulations. Little is known about their plight and their unique status’.

El Abed believes in the mythical Right of Return but she pulls no punches about how Palestinians are treated by fellow Arabs.

The continuing plight of the Palestinians is not all down to history or the Israelis; the Arabs and the Palestinians themselves bear huge responsibility for perpetuating refugee-hood as a weapon against Israeli in total disregard of the lives and livelihood of millions of Palestinians.

And when the UN agency set up specifically and uniquely to deal with Palestinian ‘refugees’ tries to improve their lives in Gaza, they have to face Hamas’ interpretation of Islam which condemns the very people that are there to help them. The Elder lists complaints in the Palestine Times, a Hamas-run newspaper:

– The creation of a UNRWA Women’s Committee meant to foster equal rights between men and women is really meant to end chastity and purity.

– UNRWA sometimes sponsors trips for students where they are in danger of meeting Jews and Zionists.

– UNRWA schools were rumored to have taught about the Holocaust which teaches students to sympathize with Jews

– Some schools have more females than males, causing them to have more female teachers than male teachers

– UNRWA salaries are too high

– UNRWA’s services have decreased as their budget gets stretched.

And it is into the arms of these people that the flotillas and convoys are running. They don’t even seem to have their story right. Are they going to bring humanitarian aid (which they can take to an Israeli port without confrontation) or are they just intent on confrontation and provocation?

Their real motivation is to destroy Israel first, help Gazans a poor second. Indeed, each flotilla and convoy is an exercise in hypocrisy and exploitation of the very people they claim to want to help.

Battle of Britain – what does it mean to today’s generation

21/09/2010 / / 0 Comments

This may be off my usual topic, but there is a connection; bear with me.

Yesterday I watched a wonderful and deeply moving programme in the BBC’s Battle of Britain commemoration series.

We were told the story of that battle, in September 1940, by following two brothers, the actor Ewan McGregor and his older brother, Colin, who is an RAF pilot and has served in Afghanistan.

The story was as much about the boyish dreams of the McGregor brothers to, one day, fly in Spitfires and Hurricanes as it was about the battle and the story of some of the veterans of that battle.

Four Battle of Britain fighter pilots told their story and recalled incidents in conversation with the brothers.

The highlight of the programme was watching Colin McGregor train first in an old Gypsy Moth, then progress to a US Harvard which was the aircraft used to train the original pilots. Finally, Colin flew a two-seater Spit, fulfilling his life’s ambition. When he returned to the airfield he sat in the cockpit for a few moments in the realisation that he had just done something he had always dreamed about. It was a very emotional moment for him and the viewer.

But just as emotional was Colin’s decision not to take his seat in the second flight which was two Spitfires and a Hurricane in close formation following the route of the South Coast defenders of 70 years ago. He had had his moment, now it was Ewan’s turn. The sense of brotherly love was palpable and so moving as Colin told Ewan that he was giving him his seat.

Ewan, as a passenger in the two-seat Spit, then had his dream come true. Colin appeared to get as much pleasure from Ewan’s experience as Ewan himself. Their brotherly embrace as Ewan returned was very touching.

Why is it that these iconic aircraft and the story of the veterans are so moving? Why do we, rightly, venerate these pilots who, in their early twenties, risked all for their country?

I grew up in the decades just after the war. The War, with a capital ‘W’ was part of my life almost as much as if I had lived through it personally. My mother regaled us with her experiences in the East End of London and the family’s enforced evacuation to Buckinghamshire when their home was hit by incendiaries and ‘time-bombs’.

The War seemed so exciting and even amusing to me as a child.

Countless films about the war told us that we, the righteous, had won and that evil had been defeated with great sacrifice. It was glamorous, it was poignant. But in the end it was a just war.

And so these veterans are our heroes; they saved our country and our civilisation from tyranny. Even the generation after me, in the form of the McGregor brothers, still grew up with this story, and Ewan even said that had it not been for The Few we would all be goose-stepping around. Well, that’s not certain, but many more dark years and even more suffering would have resulted if Great Britain had not held out, alone.

And this, too, is why, the very sight of a Spitfire or a Hurricane, and definitely the sound of them, conjure up a time when our country was united in purpose, when the entire population was engaged in a single momentous enterprise: a fight for survival. In 1940, everyone knew what it was to be British and everyone knew that the values inherent in being British were worth fighting for.

I think it’s worthwhile revisiting Churchill’s speech as the battle was about to commence:

What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.

But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.

Does this not strike a chord with what we are experiencing today?

Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation.

Some believe our Western civilisation is under thread from Islamisation, some believe it is under threat from secularism. I don’t have to explain the reasons for the former. But for the latter we have the recent visit of Pope Benedict to reveal to us a growing movement of aggressive secularism and atheism.

Of course, we all have the right to be atheists or secularists, but the Pope was attacked by a mean-spirited bunch of secularists and militant atheists led by Peter Tatchell and supported by Stephen Fry, Richard Dawkins and others.

I have enormous admiration for these three men, but what we witnessed was a new intellectual hubris fed by self-righteous indignation and assertive secularism which focused on the negative aspects of the Roman Catholic church whilst missing the wider picture.

Although I can agree with the indignation felt by those who support Gay rights, right to abortion and condemnation of paedophiles, what I can’t agree with is the belief that these issues invalidate Christianity and all the positive aspects of religion and moral teachings and hundreds of years of philosophical thought.

It is as if the secularists want to make a tabula rasa of our civilisation and culture by kicking out the Judeo-Christian baby with the holy bath water.

And this is where I bring it back round to Israel. Just as the Church has its problematical teachings and behaviour so Israel has its own issues of human rights, religious extremism, social justice.

And just as the secularist mob attack the Pope, so the Leftist/jihadi axis attacks Israel, and both choose the vulnerable underbelly to delegitimise and demonise but miss the broader picture; they miss the charitable work, the teaching of moral behaviour, the ideas of love and redemption in Catholicism and they miss Israel’s central role as a bulwark against the dark forces of political Islam, its many achievements, the right of the Jewish people to self-determination and the ethical foundation to Jewish thought, teaching and jurisprudence.

What do today’s generation think of the Battle of Britain and the heroes of the RAF? Do they think they were war criminals for bombing Dresden, maybe?

Will Ewan McGregor’s generation be the last to be in awe in the presence of a Spitfire pilot, the last to be thrilled by the sound of a Hurricane, the last to believe that the War was a just war?

What war, if any, are we now engaged in? Is it Western civilisation pitted against Islam or is it Judeo-Christianity against secularism and atheism? Is it both?

I ask myself this question: if we reject the moral authority underpinning our Judeo-Christian civilisation, whence comes our moral compass? Where do get our ethics? How do we know how to behave?

You may say that this question has already been answered by the Enlightenment, by the Bill of Rights, by Human Rights legislation, that church and state have long been separated and we don’t need medievalists to tell us what is moral and what is not.

Yet all these things come ultimately from the Judeo-Christian belief system which are the foundations and cornerstone of our civilisation and in direct contrast to the beliefs of those who would destroy that civilisation, built piece by piece, brick by brick, stone by stone over several millennia.

We seem to be living in an era of self-righteousness and simulated moral indignation. Everyone has to apologise; politicians, theologians, bankers, sportsmen, doctors, scientists, the heads of oil companies. Put a foot wrong and the New Moral Army sticks a microphone under your nose and asks if you are going to apologise and they continue to do so until and unless you do. This is what replaces understanding and forgiveness. This is what will pass for morality in the future.

Hubristic intellectual self-righteousness is the new religion.

Who will stand up for our civilisation now? Who are the Few who will stop  “all that we have known and cared for, … sink[ing] into the abyss of a new dark age”

Did the valiant Few fight and die to preserve our civilisation for just 100 years?

Aznar in Washington – Is the tide turning?

16/09/2010 / / 3 Comments

I have previously written about the remarkable former Spanish Prime Minister, José María Aznar and his Friends of Israel initiative.

If Israel is to restore its standing internationally, defeat attempts to delegitimise the state and restore a reasoned and measured discourse about its policies and its importance to the region and the world, then it requires non-Israelis and, more importantly, non-Jews, to speak up for it.

But not just to speak up for it, but to tell the truth and dispel the myths, to enable Israel to be recognised for what it truly is and what it stands for. This implies that its enemies, their lies and their tactics and organisations that they have co-opted in the anti-Israel narrative of these times, must be exposed. Israel must be allowed the oxygen of truth not be suffocated by the poisonous exhalations of its enemies.

At a Friends of Israel conference in Washington DC on September 14th, this is what Señor Aznar had to say:

Thank you all for being here tonight in this first event in DC by the Friends of Israel Initiative.

I know that some of you have made an extra effort to be here. Between the upcoming mid-term elections and the High Holy Days, many of us should probably be somewhere else tonight. So, I really appreciate the fact that you are here with us.

Though for a Spaniard having dinner at eight is almost like a late lunch, I know that you have to start early tomorrow, so, I’ll be brief.

I also know that when a politician says “I’ll be brief” the audience should start trembling, but as a former politician I’m entitled to tell the truth, trust me.

I’m here tonight to present to you a work in progress, the Friends of Israel Initiative. An idea I have been promoting with the help of some friends, some of them are here tonight, like:
Former President of Peru, Alejandro Toledo
British historian, Andrew Roberts,
French entrepreneur, Robert Agostinelli,
Former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton,
Spanish former industry minister, Carlos Bustelo,
And others who couldn’t make it tonight, such as:
Professor George Weigel,
Peace Nobel prize Lord Trimble,
Lord Weidenfeld,
Former president of the Italian Senate, Marcello Pera,
Fiamma Nerestein, representative in the Italian parliament, and champion of human rights and democracy Former Czech President Vaclav Havel, the latest member of our growing Board.

They all answered my initial call, last May, because all shared with me the sense of urgency to do something about the growing trend of deligitimation of Israel.

Our first meeting took place in Paris the very same day Israeli troops stopped the Flotilla heading to Gaza. Very timely, as you can tell.

Our second event took place in calmer waters, in late July, in London.
And now, we are here in Washington D.C.

Why? Very simple: We believe in the West, In the values all we share . In the ties that bind free societies, and distinguish our democracies from those governments who have yet to give way to the rights of their people and the arc of history.

And, we know – better than many – that the West has been shaped, led and defended by America.
As a European, I don’t have any problem saying that America has been a force for good in the World, protecting peace, promoting liberty and human dignity, and expanding prosperity. Furthermore, America has been the best ally of Israel, and it should remain so. And America’s role as the Leader of the Free World, as the the spark of hope for a better life for countless souls the world over should be a source of pride for all Americans.

It certainly serves as an inspiration to us.

Many of us came from Europe. Most of us are not Jewish. And I am sure that many of you may be wondering what it is that we seek, and why we believe it so vital to stand up and be counted on this issue.
Hence, our interest to explain here what we want and why.

We defend Israel because we believe that is the best strategy in current times to defend the West.
When we started putting this Initiative in motion, the whole World was condemning Israel for reasons I don’t need to elaborate since you know them better than I do.

Now, the atmosphere has changed a little since direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians have resumed and the peace process is moving ahead. Despite all the difficulties the negotiations may experience, I think we all should recognize the value, the prospects, and the hopes they represent. I am sure that Israel wants peace, and I know that all true friends of Israel want to see her achive that dream of peace and security.

But as we made clear in our first statement (which should have been on your chair tonight, by the way), there are problems in the region greater than just an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. Problems that will not go away even if a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is eventually reached.

While Israel has made peace with Egypt and Jordan, and her economy has strengthened in recent years, now not decades ago, Israel, is facing increasing dangers. She has been forced to defend her people from Hezbollah in the North and thousands of Hamas rockets in the South. And. perhaps most worryingly, Israel is increasingly threatened by the scenario of a nuclear Iran – something the world must certainly act urgently to prevent.

On top of that, Israel is under a new kind of attack. Not conventional war as in 1948, 56, 67 or 73. Not terrorism as we saw in the 70s, 80s and 90s. But a new kind of attack – an attack on Israel’s legitimacy, on her right to exist. A “soft-war”, where many of its adversaries are employing legal tricks, multinational bodies, and an army of dubious NGO’s to present internationally Israel as an illegitimate state, as a barbarian State, a State that should be isolated and converted into a pariah State.
We think this is intolerable. It is unjust, morally wrong, and a strategic risk — not only for Israel and its people — but for all of us.

Israel is an integral part of the West, and the weaker it is, the weaker the entire West will be perceived to be.

Even if we want to turn away from the traumas of 9/11, we simply do not have the luxury to choose our enemies. As Senators Baker, Dole, Daschle and Mitchell made clear in their latest report, published 5 days ago. by the Bipartisan Policy Center, the threat to our way of life from radical islamists is real, and it has not yet been eliminated.

Let me be clear. We don’t want in any case to defend any particular Israeli government or any particular set of policies or any particular party. Israeli institutions are mature enough to defend their choices. We want to stand up for the right of Israel to exist. Judeo-Christian values form the roots of our civilization. Delegitimizing Israel undermines our identity, warps our values and put at risk what we are and who we are.

So, dear friends, it is not only the threat that if Israel goes down, which, make no mistake, many of its enemies would like to see happen, we all go down. It is that letting Israel be demonized will lead to the deligitimation of our own cherished values. If Israel were to disappear by the force of its enemies, I sincerely doubt the West could remain as we know it.

So, I conclude: Is it craziness for a group, as I said before, of mostly Europeans and non-Jews, to say: Enough. Stop this non-sense of making Israel responsible for all the problems in the region, if not beyond? Enough of the short sightedness which refuses to see Israel as a corner stone of our Western civilization?

We do believe that far from it, it is vital. For America, for the West, for Israel. And for our children and grandchildren and the world they will inherit. Because there is still right and wrong in this complicated world. And if we allow those fundamentals to be blurred and eroded and confused, we will all be dangerously adrift.

Defending Israel today means strengthening the West, standing up for our values, and their right to exist as a normal country, a fellow democracy and a celebrated ally in our great western alliance.
I hope that you will share our vision, and will help us in bringing reason and decency back to the discussion concerning Israel.

Thank you very much

With friends like this, maybe, just maybe, enough people of good will and integrity can be brought together to fight with and on behalf of Israel, not on the battlefield but in the hearts and minds of decent people everywhere.

A New Year of hope or disappointment?

07/09/2010 / / 2 Comments

As we approach the Jewish New Year, a time of reflection and renewal, once again we look forward to peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

So, in the spirit of the New Year, let us hope beyond hope that the first faltering steps to a real peace can be made.

But what sort of peace can there be whilst Hamas, Hizbullah, Iran and ‘anti-Israelis’ all over the world seek her destruction.

Israel has shown its desire for peace over and over again. They gave back the Sinai to make peace with Egypt. They made peace with Jordan. They withdrew all settlements from Gaza.

What have they received in return? Intifada and rockets and bombs and threats, delegitimisation and boycotts.

As  José María Aznar said to the World Jewish Congress in Jerusalem recently:

Though I’m not sure about the possibility to achieve a “historic agreement” given the circumstances on the Palestinian side, we must be optimistic. At least the world will see that it is not the Israeli government that is the one that is not willing to talk and is not ready to deliver.

And what are the “circumstances on the Palestinian side”? They are still the refusal to recognise Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people, they are its continuing demonisation of, not just Israel, but Jews; they are insistence and a ‘Right of Return’ which neither exists or is practicable; the demand for a return to the 1949 armistice lines and the division of Jerusalem.

In other words, whilst Palestinians still dream of the end of the Jewish state, if not now or next year, at some point in the future, Israelis are willing to make painful concessions to achieve a lasting peace. Or at least to achieve two states recognising the rights of others to self-determination.

It is difficult to see any such agreement when Hamas see any deal with Israel as treason, whilst Hizbullah and Iran still call for Israel’s destruction and Fatah itself remains ambiguous despite its protestations.

We can only hope or pray or work for peace and truth and justice for everyone in the region. An Israel at peace could give so much to the region if only they were willing to accept it. If Israel’s enemies would embrace peace and not war, life not death, the world could be transformed.

In the words of Binyamin Netanyahu “Shalom, salaam, peace”.

Shana tova.

In praise of Israel – Qatar Tribune

30/08/2010 / / 0 Comments

How did this one slip through? Although it has been noted that it does not appear in the Arabic version, this article by David Brooks, first published in the New York Times, appeared recently in the Qatar Tribune’s English language website:

The Israeli Identity

Tel Aviv’s economic leap will widen the gap between it and its neighbours

DAVID BROOKS | NYT NEWS SERVICE

JEWS are a famously accomplished group.

They make up 0.2 percent of the world population, but 54 percent of the world chess champions, 27 percent of the

Nobel physics laureates and 31 percent of the medicine laureates.

Jews make up 2 percent of the US population, but 21 percent of the Ivy League student bodies, 26 percent of the Kennedy

Center honorees, 37 percent of the Academy Award-winning directors, 38 percent of those on a recent Business Week list of leading philanthropists, 51 percent of the Pulitzer Prize winners for nonfiction.

In his book, The Golden Age of Jewish Achievement, Steven L Pease lists some of the explanations people have given for this record of achievement.

The Jewish faith encourages a belief in progress and personal accountability.

It is learning-based, not rite-based.

Most Jews gave up or were forced to give up farming in the Middle Ages; their descendents have been living off of their wits ever since.

They have often migrated, with a migrant’s ambition and drive.

They have congregated around global crossroads and have benefited from the creative tension endemic in such places.

No single explanation can account for the record of Jewish achievement.

The odd thing is that Israel has not traditionally been strongest where the Jews in the Diaspora were strongest.

Instead of research and commerce, Israelis were forced to devote their energies to fighting and politics.

Milton Friedman used to joke that Israel disproved every Jewish stereotype.

People used to think Jews were good cooks, good economic managers and bad soldiers; Israel proved them wrong.

But that has changed.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s economic reforms, the arrival of a million Russian immigrants and the stagnation of the peace process have produced a historic shift.

The most resourceful Israelis are going into technology and commerce, not politics.

This has had a desultory effect on the nation’s public life, but an invigorating one on its economy.

Tel Aviv has become one of the world’s foremost entrepreneurial hot spots.

Israel has more high-tech start-ups per capita than any other nation on earth, by far.

It leads the world in civilian research-and development spending per capita.

It ranks second behind the US in the number of companies listed on the Nasdaq.

Israel, with seven million people, attracts as much venture capital as France and Germany combined.

As Dan Senor and Saul Singer write in Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle, Israel now has a classic innovation cluster, a place where tech obsessives work in close proximity and feed off each other’s ideas.

Because of the strength of the economy, Israel has weathered the global recession reasonably well.

The government did not have to bail out its banks or set off an explosion in short-term spending.

Instead, it used the crisis to solidify the economy’s long-term future by investing in research and development and infrastructure, raising some consumption taxes, promising to cut other taxes in the medium to long term.

Analysts at Barclays write that Israel is “the strongest recovery story” in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Israel’s technological success is the fruition of the Zionist dream.

The country was not founded so stray settlers could sit among thousands of angry Palestinians in Hebron.

It was founded so Jews would have a safe place to come together and create things for the world.

This shift in the Israeli identity has long-term implications.

Netanyahu preaches the optimistic view: that Israel will become the Hong Kong of the Middle East, with economic benefits spilling over into the Arab world.

And, in fact, there are strands of evidence to support that view in places like the West Bank and Jordan.

But it’s more likely that Israel’s economic leap forward will widen the gap between it and its neighbours.

All the countries in the region talk about encouraging innovation.

Some oil-rich states spend billions trying to build science centres.

But places like Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv are created by a confluence of cultural forces, not money.

The surrounding nations do not have the tradition of free intellectual exchange and technical creativity.

For example, between 1980 and 2000, Egyptians registered 77 patents in the US Saudis registered 171.

Israelis registered 7,652.

The tech boom also creates a new vulnerability.

As Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic has argued, these innovators are the most mobile people on earth.

To destroy Israel’s economy, Iran doesn’t actually have to lob a nuclear weapon into the country.

It just has to foment enough instability so the entrepreneurs decide they had better move to Palo Alto, where many of them already have contacts and homes.

American Jews used to keep a foothold in Israel in case things got bad here.

Now Israelis keep a foothold in the US.

During a decade of grim foreboding, Israel has become an astonishing success story, but also a highly mobile one.

One little quibble: Jewish achievement and Israeli achievement appear to morph into a single identity. Not all Israelis are Jews and not all Jews are Israelis. And why ‘Tel Aviv’s economic leap’? Surely ‘Israel’s’.

Maybe the Qatari English language editor is a covert philosemite.

Let the comments on how terrible Israel is and how it couldn’t do it without American tax dollars start rolling in.

Gingrich, MEMRI and the Islamic Center near Ground Zero

30/08/2010 / / 0 Comments

A friend recently sent me this quote from Newt Gingrich, former United States Speaker (Republican) of the House of Representatives (and I quote in full):

There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia . The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over.

The proposed “Cordoba House” overlooking the World Trade Center site – where a group of jihadists killed over 3000 Americans and destroyed one of our most famous landmarks – is a test of the timidity, passivity and historic ignorance of American elites. For example, most of them don’t understand that “Cordoba House” is a deliberately insulting term. It refers to Cordoba , Spain – the capital of Muslim conquerors who symbolized their victory over the Christian Spaniards by trans-forming a church there into the world’s third-largest mosque
complex.

Today, some of the Mosque’s backers insist this term is being used to “symbolize interfaith cooperation” when, in fact, every Islamist in the world recognizes Cordoba as a symbol of Islamic conquest. It is a sign of their contempt for Americans and their confidence in our historic ignorance that they would deliberately insult us this way.

Those Islamists and their apologists who argue for “religious toleration” are arrogantly dishonest. They ignore the fact that more than 100 mosques already exist in New York City . Meanwhile, there are no churches or synagogues in all of Saudi Arabia . In fact no Christian or Jew can even enter Mecca .  And they lecture us about tolerance.

If the people behind the Cordoba House were serious about religious toleration, they would be imploring the Saudis, as fellow Muslims, to immediately open up Mecca to all and immediately announce their intention to allow non-Muslim houses of worship in the Kingdom. They should be asked by the news media if they would be willing to lead such a campaign.

We have not been able to rebuild the World Trade Center in nine years. Now we are being told a 13 story, $100 million megamosque will be built within a year overlooking the site of the most devastating surprise attack in American history.

Finally where is the money coming from? The people behind the Cordoba House refuse to reveal all their funding sources. America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive
designed to undermine and destroy our civilization. Sadly, too many of our elites are the willing apologists for those who would destroy them if they could. No mosque. No self deception. No surrender. The time to take a stand is now – at this site on this issue.

There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia . The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over.

The proposed “Cordoba House” overlooking the World Trade Center site – where a group of jihadists killed over 3000 Americans and destroyedone of our most famous landmarks – is a test of the timidity, passivity and historic ignorance of American elites. For example, most of them don’t understand that “Cordoba House” is a deliberately insulting term. It refers to Cordoba , Spain – the capital of Muslim conquerors who symbolized their victory over the Christian Spaniards by trans-forming a church there into the world’s third-largest mosquecomplex.

Today, some of the Mosque’s backers insist this term is being used to “symbolize interfaith cooperation” when, in fact, every Islamist in the world recognizes Cordoba as a symbol of Islamic conquest. It is a sign of their contempt for Americans and their confidence in our historic ignorance that they would deliberately insult us this way.Those Islamists and their apologists who argue for “religioustoleration” are arrogantly dishonest. They ignore the fact that more than 100 mosques already exist in New York City . Meanwhile, there are no churches or synagogues in all of Saudi Arabia . In fact no Christian or Jew can even enter Mecca .  And they lecture us about tolerance.
If the people behind the Cordoba House were serious about religious toleration, they would be imploring the Saudis, as fellow Muslims, to immediately open up Mecca to all and immediately announce their intention to allow non-Muslim houses of worship in the Kingdom. They should be asked by the news media if they would be willing to lead such a campaign.

We have not been able to rebuild the World Trade Center in nine years. Now we are being told a 13 story, $100 million megamosque will be built within a year overlooking the site of the most devastating surprise attack in American history.

Finally where is the money coming from? The people behind the Cordoba House refuse to reveal all their funding sources. America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization. Sadly, too many of our elites are the willing apologists for those who would destroy them if they could. No mosque. No self deception. No surrender. The time to take a stand is now – at this site on this issue.

I referred my friend to a Wikipedia artcle which is, at least, balanced.

About a week ago I wrote to MEMRI because they had posted a video under the title “Feisal Abdul Rauf, Imam of Planned Ground Zero Mosque: One of Our Goals Is to Make People Understand What Islam Is”.

This is what I wrote:

I am a big fan of MEMRI but I’m not sure about this latest video of the Imam of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque.

I thought MEMRI was about revealing the truth. So why do you call a cultural center with a prayer room 2 blocks from GZ a Ground Zero Mosque in your title? This is a distortion.

I did not see a single objectionable thing in the Al Jazeera interview. I perceive no secret motives or malign intent. As far as I know, the use of the building as a Cultural Center is legal. What’s the wider context you are trying to show, here?

Please explain the ‘message’ behind your placing this on your website.

Back came the reply:

Dear Mr. Cook,

Thank you for your message. Regarding the Al-Jazeera interview, we certainly did not claim that there was anything objectionable stated in it. We translated it because it’s a media topic of much current interest. We follow the interest of the media, and do not seek particularly objectionable or commendable content. Indeed, there is nothing objectionable there, so on this we are in agreement.

As to the name “Ground Zero Mosque,” this is also the common name in much of the mainstream media. We can change it to “Islamic center close to Ground Zero,” but what we would not want to do it to close our eyes to its proximity to Ground Zero, strengthened by the fact that the initiators reject the very idea of moving it from that place, nor do we ignore the title that Imam Abdul-Rauf chose for the Indonesian version of his book, which is “A Call of Azan from the Rubble of the World Trade Center: Islamic Dawa in the Heart of America after 9/11.”

So on this, I guess, we disagree. I’m sorry for that.

In other words, they DID see something sinister or else why would they publish? Did Imam Abdul-Rauf choose the title for the Indonesian version of his book? And is it that sinister? Maybe if you are suspicious about the motives of Abdul-Rauf you can spin this as a triumphalist title.

My reply:

Thanks for the reply. That is interesting. I’ll check out the Imam’s book as I wanted to know the context of the MEMRI video and you have shown that. I am still unsure about the Islamic Center and I don’t know whether 2 blocks is near or whether 3 blocks is also near.

I still don’t like perpetuating the GZ Mosque title just because the MSM are freaking out about a non-existent mosque doesn’t mean that you have to go along with it.

So on this occasion we do disagree, sadly.

Thanks for all the work you do.

But then, a little later this arrived from MEMRI:

Thank you.

By the way, the AP just today issued a directive to its staffers to avoid the phrase “Ground Zero Mosque,” and to instead say “near” it. This is what I also thought, after reading your email.

So we will follow the AP’s lead on this.

This is the new title for the video: “Feisal Abdul Rauf, Imam of Planned Islamic Center Near Ground Zero: One of Our Goals Is to Make People Understand What Islam Is” (my emphasis).

I commended them for changing the title to a more honest one.

I have replied to my friend who sent me the Newt Gingrich quote and I repeat it here with a little editing:

In the matter of the Córdoba Center, I’m yet to decide. But I am not American, not a New Yorker, no-one I know was killed in 9/11.

Do I have any right to comment? Not sure.

I recently complained to MEMRI that a video of the Imam on their site included the name ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ even though it is not at GZ and is not a mosque. They subsequently changed the headline to say ‘Cultural Center NEAR Ground Zero.

If we don’t like misleading headlines about Jews and Israel then why should we tolerate them when they are designed to mislead about other faiths and groups.

An interesting question to ask yourself is: ‘How far from GZ would a ‘mosque’ be acceptable?

Another is ‘should the United States be making decisions based on a comparison to Saudi Arabia?’

Also, ‘how many Muslims are there in Lower Manhattan?’ Why do they need such a large building? Is this a symbol of Muslim tolerance or supremacism?

What laws are there to prevent this building from being constructed?

What law would have to be enacted to stop it? Would that law be in breach of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights?

So, how far do Western Democracies, the inheritors of the Enlightenment and over 200 years of the development of civil liberties, personal freedom, the freedom of the Press, free speech, freedom of worship etc. have to compromise these hard-won rights in order to protect those same rights from a religion which does not recognise any of them and, ultimately, believes in overturning them and replacing them with a medieval Caliphate?

By using Draconian measures to stop these perceived threats, do we damage the ability of Islam to reform itself and modernise and make it even more subject to fundamentalist ideology?

So I very definitely do not know what the answer is to this controversy, but I do know that listening to very Conservative Americans is not necessarily going to provide a balanced view.


Blog Wars

20/08/2010 / / 3 Comments

A couple of months ago I decided to start posting on the Jewish Chronicle (JC) Blogs.

I didn’t realise what I was about to discover; what I did discover was something of a revelation.

I don’t just post articles, I participate in the discussions which arise out of the majority of posts.

When I first arrived I landed in the middle of what I call the Blog Wars. Despite this being the JC, the blogs are open to anyone provided that they stick to some obvious rules. The blogs and their comments are moderated and it is not unknown for comments to be removed or even for bloggers or commenters to be banned.

What most surprised me was that I soon found there are two main camps: pro-Israel/Zionist and anti-Israel/Zionist. There are also one or two neutrals.

Almost every blog post can be the catalyst for some right old ding-dongs between these two camps. It’s a sort of Jewish version of the Guardian’s CiF (Comment is Free).

I actually found this very interesting, not only could I see how the ‘other side’ thinks, I could also challenge them,  be challenged by them, argue with them, but never, of course, persuade them. This is an excellent training and test ground to hone your own arguments, to make sure of your facts and sharpen your own polemics.

It is also, at least for me, as a bit of an old lefty, an opportunity to question your own views and convictions in the light of the counter arguments. But, I can honestly say, this self-examination has not fundamentally changed my views, but it has reinforced my commitment to balance and to avoid dogmatism.

Both sides in these Blog Wars tend to be unyielding, entrenched and assured of their own righteousness. Little quarter is given. Israel is rarely criticised by the Zios and the anti-Zios will continue to sympathise with Hamas and Hizbollah.

By far the most revealing of the anti-Zios is a certain representative of Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JfjfP). I am not going to name names here; go and read the blogs; it’s unfair to mention any individual here who is unlikely to respond in person and I’m not going to discuss or reproduce the comments that have appeared in the JC. I’ll simply summarise what these discussions ‘below the line’ reveal.

The JfjfP representative is polite and seems to try very hard to be poised and restrained. JfjfP are part of the left wing bloc that organises demonstrations for Palestinians and Palestine and against Israel and Zionism.

This particular JfjfP member claims she is not anti-Israel and recognises Israel’s right to exist (well thanks).  She is, however, of the opinion that Israel is a colonialist experiment, that the Occupation is illegal and cruelly prosecuted, that Hamas are understandable freedom fighters, that it is Israel and Israel alone and its policies which are the cause of the conflict; if only Israel would seek peace, negotiate with Hamas and the PA, this peace would magically materialise and 100 years of strife would dissipate into thin air, no-one would attack Jews anymore and her ideal, presumably Marxist, certainly Socialist, state would rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes of Israel.

In other words, socialist ideology colours her opinion of Israel which is demonised in her mind to the extent that it can never be right, can never be lawful, because it is an illegitimate state in the first place. And because of this ideological blindness she, like so many others on the far left, be it George Galloway, Alexei Sayle, Tony Benn, Gerald Kaufman and, indeed, a number of post-Zionist Israelis who take the same stance, she is prepared to overlook the anti-Semitism, the homophobia, the misogyny, the Islamofascist death culture of Hamas and its fellow travellers; for her, their charters are just pieces of paper and they can be persuaded to make peace and forswear their previous acts and deeds and policies and bigotry.

Thus the far left supports representatives of the most dangerous, religio-political movement of our times: fundamentalist Islam. They do this in the name of their own socialist vision of the world and history.

The level of self-delusion, double-think and self-deception involved in this world view is astonishing and frightening. It is anti-democratic, anti-liberal, anti-Enlightenment and it makes a pact with the real devil by demonising an imperfect state – Israel.

I am not saying that we Zionists and pro-Israel supporters never take an ‘Israel can do no wrong’ position. It does happen and it happens more when Israel is under mortal threat. What room is there for any self-criticism when your opponents are relentless in theirs. Yet I can never ever find the ‘other side’ critical of the Palestinians and their supporters. It’s as if they are perfect, blameless, beyond criticism because if they do anything wrong the Zionists forced them to do it. At the same time, I do find a very lively debate in the Israeli press and the Jewish World.

There is a big difference between fair criticism and an agenda of demonisation and delegitimisation.

It is very sad indeed to encounter Jews who see history only through a socialist or Marxist prism, even if it means contributing to the efforts of those who would destroy Israel and kill all Jews and, therefore, the very Jews who now support them.

I wonder why some Jews who claim to uphold true Jewish values through sympathy and justice for Palestinians must also simultaneously join in with the chorus of the demonisers of their own people.

Why do they have to create a soi-disant ‘Jewish’ group?
What is it that is so important for them about Jewish values that they have to group together as not-in-my-namers?
What is Jewish about denying the right to Jewish self-determination?
What is Jewish about sympathy, even tacitly, for those who would commit genocide of the Jews given half a chance.
What is it that is Jewish about demonising fellow-Jews?

I’m currently reading Howard Jacobson’s latest novel, The Finkler Question, I found a very apt and devastating paragraph which amusingly describes Jews who give succour to their would-be destroyers. In the book there is a group not too dissimilar from JfjfP called ASHamed Jews:

To be an ASHamed Jew did not require that you had been knowingly Jewish all your life. Indeed, one among them only found out he was Jewish at all in the course of making a television programme in which he was confronted on camera with who he really was. In the final frame of the film he was disclosed weeping before a memorial in Auschwitz to dead ancestors who until that moment he had never known he’d had. ‘It could explain where I get my comic genius from,’ he told an interviewer for a newspaper, though by then he had renegotiated his new allegiance. Born a Jew on Monday, he had signed up to be an ASHamed Jew by Wednesday and was seen chanting ‘We are all Hezbollah’ outside the Israeli Embassy on the following Sunday.*

*Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question, Bloomsbury 2010, pp 138-9

On the wing and a prayer – Itay Shecheter scores for Hapoel Tel Aviv

19/08/2010 / / 3 Comments

Hapoel Tel Aviv player Itay Shecheter’s goal celebration seems to have upset the Portuguese referee.

Having scored  after running almost from the half-way line, he produced a Hapoel kippa from inside his sock.

Having donned said head-covering he proceeded to go down on his knees, cover his eyes and appeared to offer a prayer to the Almighty.

Why was he booked? Here’s the YouTube video of this event:

The manager said that when Christian players cross themselves when they score no-one makes a fuss. Muslim player also seem to acknowledge Allah.

Maybe there’s some FIFA rule about wearing items of clothing or something. Maybe he thought he was advertising.

Maybe he was just advertising his religion.

Salzburg slaughtered by Shecheter*!

*if you don’t get this joke, check a Yiddish dictionary.

BBC – well it couldn’t last

19/08/2010 / / 0 Comments

Hurray for Panorama!!

Boo!! to Paul Wood, BBC News reporting on Eden Aberjil’s disgusting Facebook images of her posing with Palestinian prisoners.

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10997011)

Here’s why:

A great many young Israeli soldiers have photograph albums quite similar to Eden Aberjil’s ‘The army: the best days of my life’.

The only difference is that they do not post them on Facebook.

That explains her remark that she still did not “understand what was wrong” and the comment of Dr Ishai Menuchin of the Committee Against Torture in Israel that “she is a bad apple, but all the box are bad apples”.

The IDF likes to think of itself as the most ethical army in the world and so condemned the photographs in strident terms. (They are also no fools when it comes to public relations).

For most young conscripts, and young Israelis who have completed their military service, I suspect the reaction will not be outrage but a simple shrug of the shoulders.

Ouch!!

“No fools when it comes to public relations!? you gotta be kidding. But suppose they didn’t condemn it? Can’t win if you are an Israeli.

I’d like to see some of the UK soldiers’ picture albums.

Of course Dr Ishai Menuchim is a totally dispassionate observer. Where’s the evidence for all these sweeping statements? Did they do a survey?

“I suspect”, he says. I suspect that you are an extremely bad journalist, but at least I now have evidence to prove it.

Move along the bus – Israeli style

08/08/2010 / / 2 Comments

Here’s a little story I was told this shabbat which in a small but significant says a lot about the morality of Israelis.

This person was on a bus where passengers were entering through the front and back doors. The people at the back could not reach the driver to pay their fare as it was so crowded. As a result, those at the back passed their fare money down the bus, hand to hand until it reached the driver. The driver then passed back the tickets and the change along the same route.

A lone, very English voice could be heard to say, “You would never see this in England. Only in Israel”.

This scrupulous morality and honesty, although, of course not universal in Israel is, nevertheless, the norm. It comes from a shared national project, Jewish ethics, and a sense that everyone in this small nation is part of the Israeli family. And when you come as a tourist, then you too are, for a few days or weeks, part of that family.

The bus example, for me, shows the real face of the majority of Israelis; honest, generous, welcoming, and at their best where a community spirit and teamwork is required.

Without this spirit there would be no Israel.

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