Archive for February, 2010

End of the J street "Boycott" story

by MJ Rosenberg on February 28, 2010 in Politics with Comments Off

There is some good news under the sun (well, not exactly the sun on this wintry Friday).  The Israeli government has made clear that the boycott of J Street is over.  Actually, the Israeli government itself was not engaging in the boycott. During the recent trip to Israel with five members of Congress, the J Street Education Fund-sponsored Delegation met with high-level Israeli officials from across the political spectrum. Even the head of the Yesha Council (which represents the settler movement) met with the group.

But that wasn’t the story.  The big news coming out of the trip was that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon ignored J Street’s request that they meet with the Delegation (which, remember, included five House members). J Street was told nothing about why or even if its Delegation was being boycotted. But reporters from two major Israeli dailies were told that the Foreign Ministry had instructed officials not to meet with the Delegation.

This boycott did not sit well with members of Congress who, almost without exception, meet with high-level Israeli officials whenever they visit Israel. America is Israel’s primary ally in the world and Congress supplies it with the essential aid Israel needs to maintain its security.  It is, to put it nicely, not smart to boycott US legislators no matter which organization is escorting them to the country.

Apparently, the Israeli government as a whole could see the blunder that the Foreign Ministry had committed and the Foreign Ministry’s action was condemned by key Israeli leaders (including former Foreign Minister and Kadima party chief Tzipi Livni).

And this week, criticism of the Ministry’s misstep was taken up in the Knesset. At Wednesday’s session, Kadima member Nachman Shai rose to ask why the J Street Delegation was not received by the Foreign Minister or his Deputy.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the bottom line is that neither the Foreign Minister nor his Deputy, who is sitting here in this room, received the Delegation from the US. I don’t understand why that happened. I want to denounce it, I want to hear explanations and mainly I want to hear, Mr. Deputy Foreign Minister, that it was a mistake, that it shouldn’t have happened, and that if J Street or any other group concerned with Jewish affairs and Israeli affairs in the US comes to Israel, the Foreign Ministry, including your honor, will meet them, because this is the most important dialogue that Israel should conduct.”

Former Labor Party leader, Amir Peretz, added: “I address the Prime Minister: you are going to the US in a few weeks. You are going to a meeting with AIPAC. That is fine. I am for it. It is very important. We must by no means minimize or underestimate the big debt we have to AIPAC. But here is your opportunity, Mr. Prime Minister. Invite them. Don’t go to the J Street conference but invite the J Street board to you. Listen to them. Give a feeling to all of the Jewish organizations from all ends of the spectrum, even if they don’t think like you, that they are wanted and that Israel welcomes them for making an effort to raise support for Israel, even if there are differences over the various issues on the agenda.”

Various members spoke — it was a very long debate.  Some said the Foreign Ministry was right.  Most said it was wrong.  The Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon, who had (along with the Foreign Minister) refused to see the Delegation, denied that the snub was intentional.  It was just a matter of scheduling.  But few were buying that.  Everyone, whether they approved of the boycott or not, knew that it was no accident.

The funniest moment was when Ayalon told Peretz, “I don’t think you know the difference between J Street and K Street.”  Ilan Gilon of the Meretz party defended Peretz: “It is very disrespectful to say to a Knesset member, a former Defense Minister, that he does not know the difference between J Street and K Street.”

It was a typical Knesset debate, bearing no resemblance to debates in our Congress which are Park Avenue tea parties by comparison. “Arrogant” “Impudent” “The street knows more than you.” “Insolent.” “Pigs.”

But, in the end, the sentiment of the Knesset was clear and the Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon, speaking for the Netanyahu government, said this: “”Since you asked what is the policy of the Foreign Ministry towards J Street, I want to be clear about it.  We will treat it exactly as we will treat any other Jewish organization in the US.  There are organizations from the right, organizations from the left, organizations from the center, period.”

And that was that.  From now on, J Street delegations — and J Street itself — will be treated like any other pro-Israel organization. At least, that is now the official government position.

Once again, some Israelis made clear that they do not make the equation — so often made here — that being pro-Israel requires marching in lockstep behind the Israeli government. (The Knesset debate demonstrated that).  Perhaps the status quo pro-Israel organizations will, as is their custom, follow Israel’s lead in recognizing not only that J Street is here to stay but that it is a legitimate pro-Israel organization and that being pro-peace does not make one any less pro-Israel.  I sure hope so. The ball is in their court.

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Abuse of language threatens American freedoms

by James Zogby on February 28, 2010 in Society & Culture with Comments Off

The last Administration displayed a rather perverse and dangerous penchant for dressing up their behavior, providing it with religious or patriotic intent. President Bush packaged the Iraq war, for example, as America’s mission – having been charged by God to bring the gift of freedom to the world. The “war on terror” was presented through the lens of World War II and the Cold War and transformed into a battle of cosmic proportions against those who “hate our freedom” and “our way of life”. U.S. troops who were sent into battle in Iraq were seen as “defending our freedom” or “making America safe”.

One could, of course, argue with this crass manipulation of potent symbols, though, at the time, few did. Politicians were especially hesitant to criticize this hyper-inflated rhetoric not wanting to appear insensitive to the public’s fear or disrespectful of the sacrifices of those who had died or been maimed in the Iraq war.

Left unchallenged, this abuse of language continued to grow and become accepted in some quarters, doing damage to our political discourse and distorting our sense of reality. Speaking to the National Tea Party Convention last month, for example, former Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin rebuked the Obama Administration for charging a would be terrorist as a criminal defendant and providing him the opportunity to “invoke our Constitutional right…”. She went on:

“Our U.S. Constitutional rights. Our rights that you fought and were willing to die for to protect in our Constitution. The rights that my son, as an infantryman in the United States Army, is willing to die for. The protections provided, thanks to you, we are going to bestow them on a terrorist who hates our Constitution and tries to destroy our Constitution and our country”.

While Palin is wrong on so many levels, her comments, reflecting the degree to which the national discussion has become distorted and out of touch with reality, must be rebutted.

First of all, it is just plain silly to bestow upon a pathetic failed would-be airplane bomber the capacity or even the intention to “destroy our Constitution and our country”. I have no doubt of his evil motives or of the hatred in his heart, but making him or those who sent him larger than they are serves no useful purpose.

Second, as painful as it may be to look at reality, head on, we must. After seven years of the Iraq war and nine years of Afghanistan, it must be clear that these were not wars to defend “our Constitution”. One of these wars was designed to depose and punish those who cruelly attacked us on 9/11 murdering 3,000 innocents. The other was based on a series of fabricated motives none of which could be construed as playing a role in making America safer or defending the Constitution.

And while we’re on the subject of the Constitution, it is important to take Palin to task for embracing what has become a popular misconception and that is that the rights detailed in the Constitution are “ours” alone. Leaving aside former President Bush’s disturbing claim the America was charged by the Almighty to bring the “gift of freedom” to the world, U.S. Courts have continually affirmed that the rights described in the Constitution apply to all “persons” who reside in the United States, not just citizens. Not only that, but U.S. Courts have also determined that the constitutional rights of habeas corpus and due process and protections against “cruel and unusual punishment” and self-incrimination also apply to prisoners in U.S. custody in Guantanamo or even some of those detained at Baghram in Afghanistan.

It is vitally important to pierce through the cloud of obfuscation and inflated rhetoric of the past decade and to advance a clearer understanding of who we are as a people and the exact nature of our role in the world. The reality we will discover is neither Bush’s divinely ordained America with its saving mission nor Palin’s more narrowly defined chauvinism.

It will require that we undergo a painful process of self-examination demanding full transparency and full accountability for past behavior. As difficult as it may be to acknowledge, we cannot continue to ignore the fact that innocent lives were lost in an unnecessary war and America’s reputation was sullied by horrific and illegal acts committed in our name.

Finally, it is important that Americans study our history and our foundational documents. It is shocking to note how few know the Bill of Rights. Even more disturbing, is to note as F. Lee Bailey, one of our nation’s great defense attorneys, once did, that if the language of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were reintroduced today they would be seen as “unpatriotic” and would in all likelihood not receive public support and would not pass Congress.

In the end, the damage done by this abuse of language goes beyond a wasteful war and confusion in our national discussion of critical issues. By inflaming passions in support of unconstitutional behavior, this rhetoric puts at risk the very freedoms it claims to be defending.

Cross Posted from The Huffingtonpost

Arab world always AWOL from major events, except conflict

by Ray Hanania on February 28, 2010 in Arab World with Comments Off

Well, another Olympics has come and is gone and once again you have to wonder where is the Arab World, a loose conflagration of 22 countries that claim to be Arab.

 Only three Arab countries even bothered to enter, although true, this is the Winter Olympics and few Arab countries have the genius like Jamaica to overcome the fact that they don’t have snow.

 Dubai has this huge indoor ski slope, the world’s largest, and what do they do with it? They pander, as they always do, to the fat sheiks and their brood of “Army brat” children and to the world’s elite wasting away their “wheat” instead of pounding it into papyrus.

 But it’s not just the Winter Olympics we’ve missed. We’re 22 strong and only have a handful in the Summer Olympics. We have no participation in the world’s beauty contests. Oh, that’s “haram” because some overweight under-educated Imam has declared it so, waving a finger at anyone who dares to challenge his interpretation of the Qu’ran that Women have no rights and are the property of men.

 Women have to hide their faces and their beauty fearing some man will use it as an excuse to assault them. Usually, the fears men have come from their own misconduct and Arab men know they would be the first to abuse the women who dare to flaunt their beauty.

 We’re in last place in almost every industry in the world from finding a solution to the world’s economic crisis to inventing energy efficient solutions to our global crisis.

 The Arab World is fat, spoiled, unimaginative and living under the thumb of a small group of small minded religious fanatics who tell the rest of us how to conduct ourselves while they privately conduct themselves in shame.

 Worse, the Arab World news media is lame and unprofessional, screaming about the Middle East conflict and oppressing their own members by threatening to “ban” them if they dare to interview the “Zionist Entity.”

 I blame the dictatorships and monarchies that continue to oppress the people of the Middle East and their conflict with the religious extremists – the Middle East’s lowest common denominator – for the backwards roll Arab culture and society is experiencing.

A long time ago and in a time far, far away, the Arab World led the planet in civilized advancements. It was probably some slave in Egypt who did all the work pound wheat into papyrus that that got the Renaissance off to a powerful beginning.

 Today, Egypt is just a slave to its own phobias and limitations, addicted to American foreign aide and fearful that Israel might pound its pyramids down to pulp if it so much as challenges the Jewish State’s oppression of the Christian and Muslim Palestinians.

 Jordan is no different with a King who “blah, blah, blah’s” himself around the world with “Happy Talk,” useless gibberish that has no impact on the region around him. Despite the fearlessness of his wife Queen Rania, King Abdullah II has sidelined himself to a so-called “steady voice of reason in the Middle East.”

 A “steady voice of reason in the Middle East” is one who says what everyone in the Western World and Western Media wants him to say.

 Then there is Dubai with all their oil wealth and big ideas show-boated on America’s premier news program “60 Minutes.” Big ideas? What big ideas? Just a lot of blather, too. Dubai is dripping in self-indulgence without one ounce of social consciousness. A selfishness driven by opulence and you know what happens? They hit an economic snag.

 The problem in Dubai is like the problem in the Arab World. They live dual lives of wanting to “open up the mind” while closing the minds of their people. Instead of tapping their own resources of genius, they hire Western PR Agencies to craft their communications and guess what? It sounds like the communications coming out of the Western World which, if you haven’t noticed, continues to hate, yes hate the Arab World.

 Meanwhile the religious fanatics and their throwbacks to the Dark Ages continue to challenge Arab Renaissance, ingenuity, openness and free thought. It’s not the dictatorships who are suppressing free speech but the fear of the dictatorships that free speech will turn in to a movement of religious nut jobs who will take over their nations and turn them into societal tombs where they, the religious fanatics, will continue to dictate and mis-interpret the words of God.

 Then there is self-oppressed Syria, conflict-plagued Lebanon, foreign military occupied Iraq, and more. I could run down every one of the 22 Arab countries and show you how they have failed. Failed to stand up on their own. Failed to lead. Failed to overcome the oppression that has drowned their talent. How not one of the 22 Arab countries even come close to the greatness that is inherent in the word “Arab.” Lacking not even an ounce of the pride and ingenuity of an Arab World that gave this planet and its human population so many of the great inventions and thought and writings.

 The Arab World is a grave yard waiting to conduct its own Wake, and the people who can change things live in fear. While the women are forced to cover their faces, the men are covering their minds and silencing their voices.

 The moderates who once gave us greatness cower in fear of Fatwas and terrorists driven by religious extremism, hoping they won’t be assassinated next. These extremists use conflicts like that in Palestine not to save the Palestinian people but as bludgeons to whip the silence of the lambs.

 Where is today’s modernday Salah-uhdin? Someone who has the courage to show the rest of the world what being an Arab is really supposed to be about?Strong beliefs in a powerful religion with respect for the lives of the religions of the book, Christianity and Judaism?

 The Arab World is disintegrating into the so-called “Islamic World,” an amalgam based on a religion that began in the Arab World and that is recited in the Arabic language, but that consists of a vast majority of non-Arabs whose agendas are far from the rights of Palestinians and freeing the Arab World.

 One day, we just might wake up and discover that the Arab, the once powerful scion of the desert who stood up tall and turned the world from its bleak dark place into a renaissance of thought and culture, has disappeared. Gone.Replaced by religious tyrants driven by the power they have through their religious oppression.

 Wake up Arab World. Wake up before it’s too late. Stop making excuses that talents as we’ve seen in the Olympics or the beauty in the world’s pageants or the innovations in world industry are “haram.”

 That oppression is an oppression of the mind and the oppression of the mind is what is destroying our great Arab Nation.

Report: Barak lobbying against U.S. envoy to Syria

by Editors on February 28, 2010 in Politics with Comments Off

Gregg Carlstrom - Evan mentioned on Wednesday that there’s slowly-mounting opposition in Washington to President Obama’s decision to name Robert Stephen Ford as the new U.S. ambassador to Syria.

Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reports this morning (عربي) that the Israeli government is also lobbying against Ford’s nomination (or against Obama naming any ambassador to Syria; this isn’t about Ford personally). Defense minister Ehud Barak made that request during a visit to Washington this week; so did an unnamed envoy from prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

 

The newspaper quotes unnamed Israeli diplomats who say Syrian officials interpreted Ford’s nomination as a “sign of weakness.”

“Syria openly and deliberately ridiculed the American demand to stay away from Iran,” the diplomats said. “When Washington decided to return its ambassador to Damascus, the Syrians interpreted this as a sign of weakness — not a responsible decision aimed at improving relations between the two countries. [Iranian president Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad similarly interprets Washington’s decision to impose only minor sanctions on Iran: He believes Obama has no experience, and acts from a position of weakness, out of fear of Iran.”

Barak also reportedly lobbied for tougher sanctions on Iran, including a gasoline embargo and a naval blockade in the Persian Gulf. But Al-Sharq Al-Awsat says Barak “failed at his objective”; PJ Crowley, a State Department spokesman, rejected any sanctions that would have a “significant impact on the Iranian people.”

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The “delegitimizers” have a tough battle ahead

by Editors on February 28, 2010 in Politics with Comments Off

Omar Salaymeh - Starving 1.5 million people, and depriving them of basic needs like medicine and building materials wasn’t enough for Israel.   About a year ago the IDF launched Operation Cast Lead attempting to topple Hamas, during which 1,400 Palestinians died leaving them with rubble for homes and non-existing infrastructure.  Needless to say, and as many had predicted judging from the IDF’s last adventure in Lebanon, Cast Lead did not achieve its objective.  What nobody expected was the stark change of worldwide public opinion towards Israel.  Bloggers, independent media, and even facebook showed the world what was happening.  Israel’s aggression was exposed, and further enforced by Judge Goldstone’s report.  A report which found “that there was strong evidence to establish that numerous serious violations of international law, both humanitarian law and human rights law, were committed by Israel during the military operations in Gaza.”

International solidarity with Palestinians has been picking up momentum quickly over the past few years.  We have seen increased calls for boycotts, and divestments, with notable successes such as the divestments from Afria-Israel, and Elbit as well as boycotts by British, and Canadian labour unions.  Israeli officials are finding it more difficult to spread propaganda through university podiums, as former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert and more recently Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren have found out.  Couple all of this with a strong grassroots movement churning out successful educational events such as Israeli Apartheid Week, and you have Israeli officials worried.

The ripples created by the pro-Palestine activist movement have been felt by the Knesset.  Earlier this month the Reut Institute warned Israeli ministers to treat the world-wide “delegitimization” campaign as a strategic threat.  The “delegitimizers” were characterized as “young people, anarchists, migrants and radical political activists” who are set on “portraying Israel as a pariah state and denying its right to exist”.  The think-tank recognized that the movement includes many Westerners from North America and Europe, backed by organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.  Reut recommended setting up a counter campaign by diplomats, while at the same time using the “intelligence service” to monitor the “delegitimizers” activities.  This of course goes hand-in-hand with the Re-brand Israel campaign which had started in Canada over two years ago, as a counter attack to the success of Israeli Apartheid Week.

Perhaps the diplomatic campaign has already started.  Canada has seen a dramatic change in relationships with Israel, going from a neutral to pro-Israel role.  We have seen funding cuts for organizations such as UNRWA and Kairos, as well increased use of “anti-semetic” allegations to silence critics of Israel.  Most recently Minister of State of Foreign Affairs, Peter Kent, uttered a “Bush-esque” statement saying that “An attack on Israel would be considered an attack on Canada” later clarifying it as a rephrasing of a statement made by PM Stephen Harper.

What Israel still fails to understand is that the large and widening support of the Palestinian people is not only due to an increased media presence, or heightened activity of the “delegitimizers” but in fact a direct by-product of increased aggression against the Palestnians.  Activists can demonstrate, write, protest, and organize but if the cause they’re rallying for is not just, the movement would shrink and collapse.  The fact of the matter is that the exact opposite is happening.  If Israel’s diplomatic counter-campaign proves anything it’s that they have a losing case.  A country which has access to the world’s biggest media sources, backed by superpowers and millions of dollars is struggling in keeping up with a group of people with “nohierarchy or overall commander”.  The days coming up might prove tough for the “delegitimizers” but just as they succeeded before they will succeed again.

 

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