The Holocaust-Israel Non-Link

The recent "Review of the Holocaust" conference held in Iran (12/11/06) was a shameful attempt at holocaust denial that is symbolic of the growing union of Islam and fascism. To their credit, even the Iranian leadership realized that this conference and the loonies that it attracted hurt their cause and made them look like unreasonable and unlettered fools. It was at this point that they adopted the insidious "fallback" position that they were not actually questioning the existence of the Holocaust, but rather pointing out the use of the Holocaust to justify the establishment of the State of Israel. Perhaps because this was the position presented by the anti-Israel and ultra-Orthodox Jews who shamefully attended the conference, the Iranian hosts hoped that this would provide them with a stamp of authenticity.

The reality is that the establishment of a Jewish homeland in the area of the British Mandate was agreed upon in 1922 by the international community through the League of Nations. That this was 17 years before World War II started and was 23 years before the full extent of the Holocaust was known, demonstrates how chronologically challenged this contention is. Yet this does not address the underlying implication that in 1947, when the United Nations voted on Resolution 181 and the partition of Israel into a Jewish and Arab state, that the Jews were "given" a state because of European guilt regarding the Holocaust.

A recent translation by David Aisner of, “Hama’avak al Eretz-Yisrael” (“Struggle for Palestine”), by Shmuel Dotan (Published by Israel’s Ministry of Defense, 1973. 7th Edition 1988) uses primary source material to definitively prove that this linkage did not exist at the time that the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) made the recommendations that led to UN Resolution 181. Here is an excerpt from pp 370-1:

The UN decision [of November 29th 1947] provided international sanction to the idea of a Jewish state and aided in the complete victory of the Jewish people in that endeavor. The decision encouraged the Yishuv (Jewish settlement) to remain strong in the face of an impending war, and spared her from having to wage a long struggle with Britain. It was a victory of at least one, perhaps two elements of the Zionist information campaign to influence the UN – “need” and “ability”.

Proponents of partition generally believed that it was within their power to prevent a bloodbath in Palestine and save the small developed Jewish Yishuv from the hands of an underdeveloped and hostile Arab majority. They were convinced that the small Jewish state would provide a haven for a few hundred thousand displaced Jews, thereby solving the “Jewish problem”. The Jewish demand for recognition of Jewish historical rights to Palestine was not authorized in the decision; the results of this refusal on the part of the UN will surface in future UN-Israel relations, especially after 1967. The UN also refused to adopt the Zionist claim that there is a permanent link between the “Jewish problem” around the world and the Palestine question. To the contrary, it turns out that the Holocaust of European Jews had very little influence on the members of the UN, and was almost never mentioned during deliberations on the Palestine question, save for the representatives of the Soviet Union and Poland, whose primary motivation was their desire to distance Britain from Palestine.

Of course, the Holocaust provided an easier “climate” for the Zionist information campaign to try to influence the UN, but it did not succeed in influencing the considerations taken into account by UN statesmen. In the end, it was the Latin American block of the UN that was the overriding factor in securing the results of the UN vote of 1947. This UN block did not view itself responsible in anyway for the tragedy of Europe’s Jews. It seems then, that the extra emphasis found in literature regarding the supposed link between the Holocaust and the renewal of Jewish sovereignty in Palestine, is an attempt to create a myth and the results of that myth.

This attempt flows from the difficulties endured by the generation that witnessed the Holocaust, and that generation’s inability to examine this traumatic event in its entirety. This is especially the case when considering how that generation bore witness to the very weak condition of the Jewish people before and during the Holocaust and how difficult it was for that generation to then recognize that they now posses some measure of strength to be considered or reckoned with by other nations. Support for Zionist interests by the “world’s nations” after WWII has been naturally described, and with great exaggeration, as a type “compensation”. In truth, the Holocaust did not advance the Zionist cause, but rather it undermined one of its core philosophical arguments – its right to speak on behalf of Jewish millions who either wanted to or were being forced to leave their countries of origin due to anti-Semitism.

The Holocaust weakened the Jewish state which arose after termination of the British mandate and reinforced the Zionist decision to relinquish claims to a larger territory in order to save the Jewish people, since the vast majority of potential Jewish immigrants were murdered. The Jewish refugee question did not play a major role in the decision making process at the UN as thought by some researchers. The countries in which Jewish refugees were located and which sought to have them removed, were not members of the UN. The role of the United States in the UN vote has always been greatly exaggerated.

In 1947, the US had already been “entangled” in what was transpiring in Palestine and was subjected to internal political pressure from American Jewish groups influenced by the Yishuv’s struggle against the British. At the same time, a political vacuum formed in the international community due to a feeling of doubt as to whether or not the UN can actually resolve international issues of the day. Under these circumstances, UNSCOP took upon itself a far more decisive historic role than was intended with its inception. Among the considerations of whether or not to support UNSCOP’s recommendation, was the desire to stand behind a successful
international resolution that would strengthen the UN’s integrity.

UNSCOP recommended partition, which under the circumstances of 1947 was a pro-Zionist solution, because it evaluated that Britain was failing in its ability to govern the region and also because it considered the Yishuv ripe for independence and that it would be wrong to place it under the rule of a hostile and underdeveloped Arab majority. The collaboration between the Arab leadership and Nazi Germany during WWII was also considered in the decision and proved to impact the Arab interest negatively. But this consideration was related specifically to WWII, not the Holocaust. The fact that Yugoslavia did not support the pro-Zionist plan, even though Haj-Amin Al-Husseini tried to enlist the Muslim minority there at the time to assist the Nazis, shed light on how difficult it was to try and link WWII to the Palestine question after the war.

The Jewish refugee issue did influence the United States, but primarily between 1945-1946 during the first winter after the war. It also influenced the Anglo-American committee after its visit to the displaced persons camps. Even so, the refugee situation was prevented from being used as a reason to adopt a clear pro-Zionist position to the point of recommending the rise of a Jewish state. UNSCOP was influenced very little by the Jewish refugee situation.

In the mean time, the refugee situation underwent significant changes. Many of the refugees scattered or left the displace persons camps to illegally immigrate to Palestine. In 1947, generally speaking, the camps were populated with new displaced persons, most of which were “escapees” from Eastern Europe. These refugees were in better physical condition and more resilient than their predecessors. UNSCOP was influenced by the illegal immigration phenomenon. But it was justly viewed by the committee (UNSCOP) first and foremost as a revelation of the Jewish struggle for independence, not as a derivative of the Holocaust. A number of witnesses claimed to UNSCOP, and very convincingly so, that illegal immigration to Palestine would have been even stronger if not for WWII or the Holocaust, because in their opinion there was no doubt that the distressful condition of Europe’s Jews in the 1930s would have only worsened in the 1940s even had the attempt to genocide or WWII not occurred.

Under these circumstances, it would seem that the reservoir of candidates to attempt illegal immigration to Palestine would have been far greater in number and in strength than what it was after the war. More than that, in 1947 the Holocaust was far less needed by the Zionist information campaign to make its case to the UN, than just one or two years prior. Conciseness of the Holocaust among the Jewish people and worry expressed by the “nations of the world” over the fate of the Jewish state will only arise in the 1960s. Even the Zionist push for statehood did not “need” the Holocaust. In fact, the push for statehood was sufficiently strong in 1937 and even more solidified in 1941, in essence before the Holocaust even began.

Putin's Path

The Washington Times in a James Zumwalt opinion piece has raised the heat in the debate started by Putin in the recent Munich security forum. At the forum, Putin stated that,

"almost uncontained use of [U.S.] military force" is causing other nations to seek out nuclear weapons to defend themselves.

This is a bit ironic if you consider the fact that Russian nuclear scientists have been instrumental in helping Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and North Korea develop the necessary technology to make weapons-grade uranium while the Russian government has kept these countries supplied in the scud missiles that could be used to deliver their payload. This too at a time when the Russian government has all but announced its intention to opt out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) so that it can once again threaten Central Europe in a balance of power game that directly threatens American interests.

As Zumwalt rightly points out:

Turning to the substance of Mr. Putin's charge, it is clear he is uninhibited by facts. His suggestion that nuclear weapon-seeking countries like Iran have felt intimidated by U.S. use of force ignores an issue of timing. Iran's quest for this capability was ongoing for 18 years before we knew about it -- when there was no basis for such intimidation. Despite Islamic extremists having taken U.S. diplomats hostage in Tehran, America's sword of retribution was never unsheathed. Similarly, there was an absence of intimidation when North Korea mounted its latest nuclear push years earlier as the United States failed to even bare its teeth.

Iran certainly has not suddenly developed the urge for nuclear technology - it has been playing cat and mouse with the IAEA for the better part of a decade. The fact that it's research facilities are scattered and buried deep underground and far from prying eyes, is a testament to the fact that the Iranians learned the lessons of the 1981 Israeli bombing of the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq. The US was unable to prevent Pakistan and India from developing nuclear arsenals and was systematically duped by the North Koreans who were clearly working on their own timetable all along.

If anything, it seems that the world is heading into a period of instability as America's misteps in Iraq and the War on terror catch up with an American public clearly lacking a desire to continue the fight. This not only emboldens America's enemies to start acting out in new new and frightening way, but creates bedfellows and threatens to solidify the international system. The outline of these emerging fault lines are becoming clear, but only time will tell how seismically destabilizing they will be.

As for the article's contention that Russia will soon be overun by Muslims, I completely disagree with the author because, for starters, I don't believe that Islam is any more monolithic than Communism was. There are definitely many Muslims in Russia, but they are the type that can be found drinking vodka and enjoying sala (fatback) with their Russian neighbors. If anything, Chechnya has proven the futility of Muslim "resistance" in Russia and clearly demonstrates that "even Muslims" have a pain threshold. It also shows that Russians are more determined and are far less inhibited than Western Europeans and Americans when confronted with existential threats.

Peace at all Costs?

So it took a little while for the actual outlines of this deceit to come through, but here is how the Palestinian spinmeisters have decided to try to get around thew incontrovertible fact that the Hamas government has not met the minimum requirements of the international community or the Quartet.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat noted that Abbas, not the Palestinian government, would lead negotiations with Israel. In asking Haniyeh to form a new government earlier this week, Abbas reiterated his commitment to all agreements signed with Israel, including the pact of mutual recognition, Erekat said.

"Since the negotiations ... are under the jurisdiction of the president and the PLO, it should be noted that the president reiterated the commitment to these principles," he said. (See here)

So, as I predicted here, Abbas would, "run cover for Hamas". Is there anyone who is fooled by this in any way. Hamas has reiterated that it will never recognize Israel's right to exist or cease from the murderous activities they call "resistance". And, just in case anyone doubted that Hamas was going soft, the recent homicide bombing in Eilat showed their commitment to this type of dialogue. Sure, the act was carried out by Islamic Jihad and the Fatah spin-off Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, yet it was denounced by Abbas and lauded by the Hamas government.

"So long as there is occupation, resistance is legitimate," said Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza.

In case you have not been following closely, the Eilat bombing happened in a local bakery during regular work hours - hardly a military target. Eilat has never been "occupied territory" and to be frank, it can hardly have ever been considered "Palestinian". Yet this is what falls under the category of "legitimate resistance" the kind which Hamas is loathe to abandon for the sake of peace.

The conventional wisdom was that if only Israel left the territories, then it would be possible to sit down with the Palestinians and reach an agreement. Finally, Israel said let's test this premise and leave part of the territories - the Gaza strip. The Palestinian response to this overture has been the election of Hamas, rocket attacks, weapons tunnels and incitement to violence. Worse, they have made it clear that they would not be satisfied with anything less than ALL of the territory that presently comprises Israel. If the Eilat attacks are not a definitive proof of this mindset, then I don't know what is.

If the world community accepts the new Palestinian coalition government without agreement to "honor" (and not just "respect") former agreements, without recognition of the right of the State of Israel to Exist and without any renunciation of terrorist violence, then those Israelis who have all along said that it was foolish to trust the International community were right. Though I personally hope these naysayers will be proven wrong, yet for some reason I am beginning to suspect that they won't.

Hug a Paestinian Today

In the Jerusalem Post article "Not With my Money", Lori Lowenthal Marcus points out the shocking fact that some of the money that American Jews contribute to the Jewish Agency for Israel actually ends up funding anti-Israel organizations.

The New Israel Fund is a non-profit organization which focuses on eliminating any special role for religion in either Israeli society or government. NIF grants reflect that orientation. One of the largest grants the NIF gave in the latest year for which information is available was to an organization it co-founded: the Mossawa Center.

An NIF document states that organization's belief that efforts should be expended to prevent efforts to "judaize the Galilee and Negev." In other words, there is no part of Israel the NIF thinks should be, or remain, officially "judaized." More than 33 percent of NIF grants go to programs that exclusively serve Arab Israelis, and fully 40 percent of Shatil, NIF's "empowerment center" money is used for assistance to Israel's Arab minority. Those programs actively promote the erasure of any special status for Jews in Israel.

I have absolutely no problem with the ideas of "empowering" Israeli Arabs or funding programs that focus on addressing the needs of Palestinians living in Israel or even needy Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza strip. As a Jew with American sensibilities, I don't even feel particularly comfortable with the notion of a "special status" for Jews in Israel. Perhaps I am hopelessly naive, but I believe that if you that if you treat people as second-class citizens they will resent you.

Admittedly, Kahane had a point when he said that you should not expect the Palestinians to hug you because they now have flush toilets. After all, even the jihadis desire all the comforts and accouterments of American life, only without the Americans and their iconoclastic social ideas. What scares them about Americans is not that they have neat gadgets and creature comforts, but that, unlike a revolving door that just spins in one direction, America's strength actually lies in pull and not push.

In any case, the fact that money sent by Jews to Israel is being shunted to anti-Israeli groups seems counterproductive to say the least. Yet, apparently even in the community where I live, the Union for Progressive Zionists is collecting money and medicine for Mustafa Barghouti - former candidate for President and running mate of Edward Said. The self-same Edward Said who invented his own Palestinian past and then amassed a personal fortune on the lecture circuit decrying Israel and the Oslo Accords.

OK, so this is guilt by assocation, and does not mean that Mr. Barghouti's organization should be boycotted. However, even a cursory reading of the Wikipedia reveals that Dr. Barghouti calls the separation fence - the one which has effectively prevented untold numbers of suicide bombers from entering Israel and blowing themselves up - the "Apartheid fence". During the last election cycle, Dr. Barghouti even campaigned in Jerusalem, even though by doing so, he courted arrest and implied that he does not recognize Israel's claim to the city. Believe me, I am not trying to gang up on Mr. Barghouti, but unfortunately, it just turns out that, try as you might, it is really not so easy to find a Palestinian to hug.

Occupation and Control in the Jewish Quarter

Here is a classic example of what happens when you send someone to report on a part of the world they know little or nothing about. Perhaps not surprisingly it comes from the BBC -Deep Tension Over Jerusalem Holy Site by Matthew Price.

The report is a first person account of the recently inaugurated excavations near the Dung Gate in Jerusalem. After describing the exasperation of an Israeli colleague who declares that, "Its just a ramp", Price proceeds to disagree and writes an article to explain to the obviously dimwitted Israeli that it's really, "all about control."

That control lies at the root of the problem is glaringly self-evident because, as Price is quick to note, the whole of East Jerusalem (and hence the Old City) is territory (illegally?) occupied by Israel.

As far as Palestinians are concerned, and to be fair most of the world, the Old City - which lies in East Jerusalem - is occupied territory.

While the inherent irony of a Brit explaining the "real" intricacies of the Arab-Israeli conflict to an Israeli is totally lost on Price, he would do well to read some history or even just a map of the Old City. The Dung Gate is not only the way leading to the Wailing Wall, it happens to be the only gate leading directly into the Jewish Quarter - a part of the city "with a nearly continual Jewish presence since Roman times".

Why "nearly continual"? Because during the 1948 War, when Jordan illegally occupied the Old City, it proceeded to expel all the Jews. Perhaps this was because throughout the past 2,000 years the Jewish community was the largest community in Jerusalem. Perhaps it was simply ethnic cleansing to ensure that the city be judenrein. In any case, for 19 years, Jews were not allowed to pray at the religious sites and could do nothing as those sites were systematically desecrated. For 19 years there was no Jewish "control" of the Jewish Quarter. For Mr. Price to hearken back to those days demonstrates once again that there is nothing more dangerous than a little knowledge.

Finally, as the article approaches its denouement, Price waxes poetically:

The church bells began to ring out. Then the muezzins started up, calling Muslims to prayer. When I first came here I heard these sounds and felt hopeful.

Surely these were the sounds of co-existence? Now I just hear the sound of centuries of competing claims to this city.

Notice that the sound of church bells does not initially bring forth any negative associations in the writer's mind. Of course the Jewish component of this imagined Nirvana of coexistence is left up to the reader's imagination.

The AJC and "Progressive" Jews

Here is another article concerning Jewish criticism of Israel by Stanley Kutler.

The American Jewish Committee has endorsed an article by professor Alvin Rosenfeld of Indiana University linking "progressive" Jewish thought to a rise in anti-Semitism. The article pointedly castigates Jewish critics of Israel's policies, and argues that such criticism questions the very right of Israel statehood. All this, Rosenfeld — and the AJC — insist, fuels anti-Semitism. It is a false proposition.

Not surprisingly, Kutler presents a "straw man" argument that makes one wonder if he bothered to read Rosenfeld's article or whether he is hoping that no one else will so that he can get away with this canard. Rosenfeld does not implicate ALL "progressive" Jews or even ALL criticisms of Israel.

In some quarters, the challenge is not to Israel’s policies, but to its legitimacy and right to an ongoing future. Thus, the argument leveled by Israel’s fiercest critics is often no longer about 1967 and the country’s territorial expansion following its military victory during the Six-Day War, but about 1948 and the alleged "crime," or "original sin," of its very establishment. The debate, in other words, is less about the country’s borders and more about its origins and essence. One of the things that is new and deeply disturbing about the new anti-Semitism, therefore, is precisely this: the singling out of the Jewish state, and the Jewish state alone, as a political entity unworthy of a secure and sovereign existence. (Bold Added)

Clearly, Rosenfeld, is not referring to ALL the critics of Israel (e.g. "In some quarters...") or ALL criticisms of Israel, but rather to criticism that the, "challenge is not to Israel's policies, but to its legitimacy and right to an ongoing future." Or critiques that, "single out" the, "Jewish state, and the Jewish state alone". I fail to see what is false about these propositions.

Critiques of the type that hold Israel by a different standard (whether a bad or a good standard) are racist. Racism against Jews is known by the term Anti-Semitism. As such, people (whether Jewish or otherwise) who promote the ideas mentioned above - i.e. advocating the destruction of Israel, or those who hold Israel solely accountable for all the problems in the Arab-Israeli conflict are without a doubt Anti-Semites. Being Jewish does not mean that they have been magically innoculated at birth.

Even stranger than Kutler's assertions above (yes, I know it is hard to believe possible) is the following paragraph:

The committee's real targets are "progressives" — which is their shorthand for Democrats and opponents of George W. Bush's dubious adventure into Iraq. Along with its favorite stable of commentary writers, the committee has been an ardent advocate for the Iraq war, fixed with a vision that it would bring forth a new Middle Eastern order. But the war and the vision have failed, and, ironically, at some cost to Israel's interests.

Aside from the fact that this comes off as what psychologists call "projection" , it has little to do with this paper and is verifiably false. In fact, Bush is never mentioned in Rosenfeld's paper and the only reference to Iraq is about a Turkish movie portraying Jewish doctors harvesting Iraqis for organs. This is a crass attempt to undermine Rosenfeld's argument by making the majority of American Jews feel that he is referring to them. After all, Kutler certainly knows that 86% of Jews voted Democratic and against Bush in the last election. (To read Rosenfeld's paper, click here.)

Finally, Kutler digs up "dirt" on the AJC from over 60 years ago and uses this to both psychoanalyze and tar the organization.

The American Jewish Committee's history reveals a convert to Zionism, one filled with the worst of proselytizing zeal. Before 1947, the committee was a powerful divisive force precisely because it so adamantly opposed the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. Its founders would marvel at the committee's evolution. ... Finally, the committee changed course in 1946, as its membership expanded with a substantial number of East European Jews and their descendants.

He has the chutzpah to say this as if nothing happened circa 1946 to forever silence the pre-war debates between Bundists and Zionists. For someone so obviously smart as the professor, it is kind of suprising that he has obviously never heard about the Holocaust. Perhaps that explains his "enlightened" perspective.

There is much more that is fundamentally wrong with this opinion piece, but I don't have all day to right these wrongs. Wait, was that last sentence meant as a swipe at Eastern European Jews?

Whither India?

In the article "What Role for Emerging India as a U.S. ally?", Anand Giridharadas explores Indian-US relations in light of the upcoming air show in Bangalore and the US attempt to sell its military hardware. The article offers three basic models:

A question hovers over the United States' blooming friendship with India:
How good a friend will India be should it emerge as a great power?

Will it be a Britain — a loyal ally, a partner against terrorism, a fellow evangelist for free markets and democracy? Or will it be France — sharing Washington's bedrock values but ever willing to pursue its own interests at the expense of American ones?

Or will it be China — a competitive threat to the U.S. economy, using its influence to thwart American diplomatic pressure on nations like Sudan and Iran?

While I don't think that these are the only possibilities, I would vote for Number 2 - the French model. Unlike the French, this approach is not out of a desire to relive past glories or some notion of moral certitude and superiority, but rather from basic geo-political and strategic concerns regarding China and a nuclear-armed Pakistan. In fact, I believe that the United States is trying its best to prop up India as a counterweight to China as part of the US rediscovery of Central Asia and in linght of 9/11 attacks.

During the Cold War, India led the group of "non-aligned nations" but was quite close to Russia due to Nehru's love-affair with Fabian socialism and a fear that the US had replaced Great Britain as the World's leading hegemon. However, because of India's unique and isolating geography - it is surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Himalayas, impassable jungles and desserts - it was relatively isolated and was of limited geo-strategic value. Thanks to the reasons noted above, as well as the rise of non-state actors and the diminishing importance of Geography, this has sparked a renewed interest on the part of Washington.

According to the article, the US administration is looking closely at arms sales to see if this signals a change in the Indian approach to the United States. Yet, after 50 years of relying on Russian arms, I am not sure that so much should be read into these decisions. Russian MiG factories dot the Indian landscape and generations of Russian engineers have worked on building weapon's systems in India. It is not so easy to just end a relationship of that depth and strength. Putin's presence on the dais with Prime Minister Singh on Republic Day is a clear testament to that fact.

I suspect that the Indian government will find a formula that will serve it's interests by being as ambiguous as possible. When asked last year to choose between Boeing (US-based) and Airbus (EU-Consortium) for airplanes to replace the government's aging fleet, in the the end BOTH were chosen. Boeing was chosen for Air India (international carrier) and Airbus was chosen for India Air (internal carrier). The fact that this was not presented as an option prior to the government decision certainly did not surprise anyone.

Frankly, if the US is looking for indicators to gauge future relations, I would recommend that they keep an eye on the arc of Maoist activity that stretches from Nepal south through Bihar, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh. This arc represents the false hopes, broken promises and unfulfilled dreams of "India Shining". This partially explains why India does not feel that it has the luxury to denounce Sudan over Darfur. Yet, if these tensions are not properly addressed by the Indian government, parts of the country could quite possibly descend into civil war and chaos. If the United States is looking for signs, it may pay off to have one eye in the sky, but it would be foolish if it did not keep the other eye firmly trained on the Forest Belt.

Using Culture as Political Leverage?

This article argues that Israel should leverage the fears of the minority Alawite community in Syria into a peace agreement.

This is the time to explain that the Alawite minority, which makes up some 12 percent of the overall Syrian population, is a pagan religious sect that worships the sun and moon. The sect is shunned by the other Muslim denominations, which advocate its death.

According to Islam, Alawites are worse than Christians and Jews. Because of the ongoing threat hovering above them, the Alawites' main goal is the preservation of their rule, and this is the prism through which their various acts towards Israel should also viewed.

Of course, couldn't Syria just use the conflict to rally the masses and build solidarity for its regime?

Excerpted from Here:

Suffer the Children?

A Jewish school in Vienna expelled the children of a fervently Orthodox Jew who attended a Holocaust denial conference in Iran.

See "Friedman’s Kids Expelled from Jewish School"

An Agreement not to Commit but to Respect

As predicted here, Hamas and Fatah have managed to find a way to share power thanks to Saudi arm twisting and the promise of a billion dollars. Of course Hamas has conceded nothing with regard to the right of the State of Israel to exist and will not eschew the use of violence. All they are are promising is to "respect" previously signed agreements rather than "committing to" them.

I find this a bit ridiculous because Hamas is in power as part of an electoral process that were agreed upon and set up as part of those previous agreements that they are only now offering to "respect". These guys had no qualms about participating in a process that was set up by an agreement that they reject, though now the are willing to openly "respect" it. This is like the PLO Charter that was ammended back in 1998 in Clinton's presence. The only problem is that no copy of the ammended Charter has ever been made available to the general public!

Jewish Anti-Zionists

Here is another article to go with the recent slew of articles regarding Jewish leftists who oppose Israel. "The anti-Israel lobby" by Jonathan Spyer:

This week saw the launching of the Independent Jewish Voices initiative by a group of prominent left-of-center Jews in the U.K. The initiative intends, according to its founding statement, to "promote the expression of alternative Jewish voices." Its sponsors believe that "individuals and groups within all communities should feel free to express their views on any issue of public concern without incurring accusations of disloyalty." The signatories wish to contend that voices critical of Israel are receiving insufficient attention in British discussions of the Middle East. The claim is a strange one.

Do opponents of Israeli government policy in the U.K., Jewish or non-Jewish, truly feel that their arguments are not being heard? Is it really their contention that the British Jewish leadership is setting up "unwritten laws," which establish the boundaries of what may or may not be discussed? If the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the main U.K. Jewish communal body, is indeed attempting to create unwritten laws and to foster anxiety to silence opponents of Israeli policy, it is doing a remarkably poor job. The public debate on Israel in the U.K. affords willing space to the most extreme of anti-Israel positions

These anti-Israel Jews are certainly entitled to their opinions - no matter how out of touch with reality and ludicrous they are. At the same time this brings up many interesting issues, such as:

• Why do they feel that they have a right to criticize from a distance?
• How representative are they?
• Are they self-hating Jews?
• What difference does it make that they are Jewish? (Especially since most of them are marginally so at best.)

Personally, I find the last question the most interesting. Why does it even matter that they are Jewish? Certainly it is sad to see a lack of solidarity among the Jewish people, but Jews are notoriously fractious and this is nothing new. You could argue that the majority of Jews were opposed to political Zionism until the Holocaust changed their point of view. Indeed, only last month, we were subjected to the shameful image of Jews participating in a Holocaust denial conference.

The reason it is newsworthy that a group of Jews is opposed to Israel has to do with the fact that as far as our detractors are concerned, a Jew is a Jew (by his/her very nature). This after all, is why Hitler's minions felt they had to destroy each and every last one of the Jews. This is also the view of the Arab street that speaks about what it would like to do to the Jew (rather than the Israeli or the Zionist). After all, aren't all Jews the same and aren't we all just part of the Jewish Borg? I believe that the the polite term to be used in mixed company is that Jews are "cliqueish".

It is thus with schadenfraude that I read about these Jews who think that they can talk their way out of this one. We have seen this movie in the past and I am afraid that we already know how it will end.

Tradition and Moderation

Take a look at Mai Yamani 's article from yesterdays Guardian: "These Moderates are in Fact Fanatics, Torturers and Killers"

Politicians, especially in times of geopolitical deadlock, adopt a word or a concept to sell to the public. In 1973, at the peak of cold-war tensions, the US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, coined the term "detente". Such words gain a currency and become useful political tools to escape policy quagmires. As the Middle East lurches from crisis to crisis, Tony Blair, George Bush and Condoleezza Rice compulsively repeat the word "moderates" to describe their allies in the region. But the concept of moderate is merely the latest attempt to market a failed policy, while offering a facile hedge against accusations of Islamophobia and anti-Islamic policies.

I agree with Yamani that calling the likes of the Saudis "moderate" is a subversion of the term and quite simply contradicts with reality. However, I disagree with the notion that there is anything new about this term. Since the early 80s, when the US decided to sell AWACS to the Saudis, this canard about them being moderates has been around.

For the US and UK governments there clearly is, because all departures from the ideals of liberal democracy and social justice are rooted in "tradition". Hence bribes, beheadings and the oppression of women and minorities are traditional, and because whatever is traditional is not radical, it must be moderate..

This is an interesting concept that hearkens back to the axiomatic anthropological notion of cultural relativism. Basically, this notion posits that, "an individual human's beliefs and activities should be interpreted in terms of his or her own culture". This means that if something is defined as "traditional", then it can't really be "bad" since it is "authentic". Of course, this becomes a subset of moral relativism and is why many anthropologists are actually anthro-apologists. I think that it is possible to understand a cultural practice without agreeing with it. Besides, I completely reject this notion of authenticity and agree with Hobsbawm's notion of the invention of tradition. Traditions are adaptive and constantly evolve and change to fit the needs of the moment. At the same time, unless they are challenged, they will continue unchecked.

I think that at any given time there are several strains of a tradition being practicd "out there". The more aggressive ones, the ones that are backed by those with wealth and power or those willing to use force to achieve their political ends are often the ones we are familiar with. This hearkens back to Foucault's "regimes of truth" or Marx's famous quote that, "the ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class. At the same time, other strains that are not "hegemonic" (to use Gramsci's language) exist and may come into play once the other tradition is no longer adaptive. However, as Edmund Burke rightly noted, "All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing."

Perhaps nowhere is this more true than in the Middle East, where long-standing traditions are struggling to stay alive in the face of the onslaight that modernity has presented it with. Rather than completely crush the radicals in Islam so that the voices of moderation have some space in which to speak up, the West appears to have made a Faustian bargain to prop up the so-called "moderates" because they are "our sons of bitches" (To paraphrase FDR about Samoza). Having said that, I stand by my conviction that democracy is hardly the magic bullet that will miraculously solve all the region's problems. Based on recent signs, it looks like the Bush administration has come to this conclusion as well.

The use of moderate to describe such leaders is necessary to mask the death of Bush's "freedom agenda" in the Middle East, with its lofty goal of regionwide democratisation. Indeed, Rice's visit to Egypt in January emphasised the word moderate and completely ignored the word democracy.

Who's Orientalizing Now - "Soft Racism" in the Media

Today the Palestinian arch-terrorist Khaled Meshaal and his henchman Prime Minister Haniya are meeting in Mecca under Saudi auspices with Palestinian President Abbas to discuss a unity government and an end to the spiraling violence in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. While I am not much of a betting man, I can say with certainty that a failure to reach some sort of compromise or accord will go down in Palestinian history as the second Nakba (Catastrophe). No doubt the Saudis are twisting arms and the Europeans are holding out an end to their economic embargo if a unity government is formed and Abbas agrees to run cover for Hamas.

Since the Hamas victory at the polls and Fatahs fall from grace last year, there has been increasing tension between the opposing factions which has developed into open warfare following Abbas’ threat to dissolve the government and call for new elections. The recent fighting has included mortar attacks on Abbas’ Presidential Palace, shots on Prime Minister Haniyah’s motor cavalcade (injuring one of his sons), attacks on rival institutions of higher learning, rival mosques and the turning of residential areas into battle zones as snipers and gunmen commandeer rooftops and apartments. Even ambulances have not been off-limits to the carnage and some of those injured in the fighting have even been kidnapped from their hospital beds. Both sides, it seems, have once again proven themselves as masters at brinksmanship - employing violence to achieve their political goals.

Of course, all of this begs the question of what the international reaction would be were Israel to have carried out any of the above actions. Undoubtedly the media would sanctimoniously editorialize about Israel’s “torpedoing” of peace efforts, “flagrant violations” of international law and “extra-judicial” kidnappings or killings. UN resolutions would be passed and EU fact-finding missions would be organized to “investigate” the matter at carefully pre-selected photo-ops. Perhaps even members of the International Solidarity Movement would volunteer to place themselves as “human shields” between the warring sides to prevent further bloodshed.

That none of this has occurred should really come as no surprise. After all, it is precisely when things take a turn for the worse that the reporters run for cover and start filing their reports from hotel rooms and the wire services provide stories by local stringers whose dedication to the truth is suspect at best. Even worse, when things become complicated and a clear good guy and bad guy are no longer easily discernible, world public opinion not surprisingly loses interest.

It is precisely for this reason that I have been following the ongoing media coverage of the Palestinian in-fighting and the language employed by the various news outlets. It is interesting that through the many “rounds of fighting” over the past two months no “cycle of violence” has yet reared its head. It appears that this merry-go-round theory of conflict which subtly posits the irrationality of “an eye for an eye” while broadly hinting at the futility of the ongoing conflict only has analytical value with respect to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In fact, one might be excused for thinking that this implies that if the Palestinians are killing each other in reprisal shootings, they no doubt have a good reason to be doing so. At the same time, it implies that there is no sense in trying to comprehend this behavior since it is clearly irrational and should not be judged by the laws of reason. Indeed, there is no need to even posit an ultimate “root” cause or theory to explain this fratricide – rather it is widely understood and accepted that resorting to violence and bloodshed is just the local way of dealing with problems.

Unfortunately, I find this approach typical of a specific type of racism representative of an unquestioned worldview that underlies this reportage. Sure, this is not the kind of racism that leaves you lying beaten and bloody in an alley by a bunch of guys in white sheets, but it is racism no less. It posits that that, as rational-minded Westerners, we can never appreciate the irrational passions and emotions that have been unleashed and thus we also have no right to judge its morality.

This perhaps explains why there has been no mention in any of the reportage about the “innocent” civilians who have been wounded or killed while caught in the crossfire between the two factions. This absence is quite striking since errant Israeli bullets usually solicit banner sized headlines such as: “Innocent child killed by Israeli bullets!” When somewhere between 14 and 22 Palestinians civilians died in a battle that killed 23 Israeli soldiers in Nablus in 2002, the world press was quick to dub it the “Massacre of Jenin”.

Yet, as hundreds of innocent Palestinians have been killed or wounded over the past few weeks, the absence of similar headlines ascribing responsibility to either Hamas or Fatah becomes even more pronounced. This seems to imply that when Palestinians kill other Palestinians, it is too complicated to figure out who is innocent. Could it be that no one wants to ascribe “guilt” by proclaiming someone innocent? Once again, the logical conclusion is that this fighting is simply one of those irrational, Oriental things that defy simple Western notions of rationality and “right action”.

This may also explain why there is also a general avoidance of legalese and no attempt to judge the sides by the principles of international law. When Israel overturns a rock in Jerusalem or send its soldiers across the Green Line, the papers are almost unanimous in their contention that this violates long-held (yet undisclosed) principles of international law. While Palestinians have violated almost every single article of the 4th Geneva Convention over the past two months, not once has anyone questioned the legality of these actions.

Salman Rushdie has termed this attitude “soft racism”, since it essentially paints a smiley face where a Swastika really belongs. This is the kind of racism that does not believe that all those Ayatollahs and mullahs could “really” mean what they say. It is a vestigial colonial attitude that patronizes the “natives” and infantilizes them by treating them with kid gloves. It says, in effect, “We know you don’t really mean any harm by your actions, you are simply not mature enough to control your emotions or act rationally.” In essence, “You know not what you are doing and can not be held accountable for your actions.”

It is clear that the recent coverage of the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict not only suffers of the Orientalism that Edward Said identified, but also from an essentializing and infantilizing of Arabs/Muslims that is clearly racist. It is time we recognized the long-standing and elaborate traditions and values that underpin Middle Eastern societies and start holding them accountable for their actions. At least no more or no less than Israel is held to account.

Welcome to Palestine

Take a look at Caroline Glick's latest article Welcome to Palestine. Pretty Scathing stuff.

And so it is that as statesmen and activists worldwide loudly proclaim their commitment to establishing the sovereign State of Palestine, they miss the fact that Palestine exists. And it is a nightmare.

In the State of Palestine 88 percent of the public feels insecure. Perhaps the other 12 percent are members of the multitude of regular and irregular militias. For in the State of Palestine the ratio of police/militiamen/men-under-arms to civilians is higher than in any other country on earth.

In the State of Palestine, two-year-olds are killed and no one cares. Children are woken up in the middle of the night and murdered in front of their parents. Worshipers in mosques are gunned down by terrorists who attend competing mosques. And no one cares. No international human rights groups publish reports calling for an end to the slaughter. No UN body condemns anyone or sends a fact-finding mission to investigate the murders.

In the State of Palestine, women are stripped naked and forced to march in the streets to humiliate their husbands. Ambulances are stopped on the way to hospitals and wounded are shot in cold blood. Terrorists enter operating rooms in hospitals and unplug patients from life-support machines.

In the State of Palestine, people are kidnapped from their homes in broad daylight and in front of the television cameras. This is the case because the kidnappers themselves are cameramen. Indeed, their commanders often run television stations. And because terror commanders run television stations in the State of Palestine, it should not be surprising that they bomb the competition's television stations.

The Democracy Solution?

Amir Taheri, the Iranian born Middle East commentator has an article in this month's Commentary magazine sets his sights on the Iraq Study Group (ISG) and presents what he believes are the "real" or root problems of the Middle East.

Fifteen years ago, after the first defeat of Saddam Hussein and the liberation of Kuwait, President George H.W. Bush and his Secretary of State James Baker faced the question of how best to exploit the American victory as a means of stabilizing the Middle East. The obvious course would have been to deploy the immensely enhanced prestige of the United States, backed by its unprecedented military presence in the Persian Gulf, to help create new and durable security structures in a region regarded as vital to American national interests.

How might this have been done? The U.S. could have urged its Arab allies to introduce long-overdue reforms as a step toward legitimizing their regimes and broadening their domestic political support. At the very least, the U.S. might have urged the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council to end their decades of intramural feuding and forge a broader alliance with Jordan and Egypt. This, with American support, might have helped create a new balance of power in the region to counter the ambitions of adventurist regimes like Iran, Iraq, and Syria.

But nothing of the sort was ever considered in Washington. Instead, as Baker declared in September 1991, the administration would go for “the big thing”: that is, finding a solution to the century-old conflict between the Jews and the Arabs. The result was the Madrid conference, an impressive show of heads of state but, as the decade’s subsequent events would prove, a wholly counterproductive exercise in peacemaking.

The two key analytical assumptions that led to Madrid were, first, that the Arab-Israeli conflict was the issue, the Ur-issue, of Middle Eastern politics and, second, that all the other issues in the region were inextricably linked to it. Despite everything that has happened in the interim to disprove these two assumptions, they still underlie the thinking of diplomats today. Most recently, they were repeated almost word for word in the long-awaited report of the Iraq Study Group (ISG) headed by the very same James Baker.

As Taheri rightly points out, this fixation on the Arab-Israeli conflict as the central or "Ur-issue" is a type of reductionism that borders on wish-fulfillment. Worse, it not only serves to divert attention from the very real internal problems that exist throughout this region, it privileges the discourse of those Arab elites who have made their careers by using the Arab-Israeli conflict to avoid much-needed introspection and reform. Moreover, the subtext to this approach is that it places the onus on the Israeli side, and is widely recognized as shorthand for "Israeli concessions". It presumes that an ever-shrinking Israel would suddenly bring peace and development to a region that British Prime Minister Blair has dubbed the "arc of crisis"

In this article, Taheri asserts that as pieces of former empires, none of the countries comprising this arc, "enjoys fully defined or internationally recognized borders" and then (quite didactically) goes about describing every contentious oasis or claim of suzerainty from Kashmir to Western Sahara. While it is certainly relevant to a more comprehensive understanding of the region that, "22 full-scale wars over territory and resources, not one of them having anything to do with Israel and the Palestinians" have been fought, in the end this is less than half of the story.

Taheri hints at irredentist claims in passing, but hardly does them justice. For example, the Kurds - which according to the Wikipedia article on them number some 35 million individuals - are mentioned only as part of a longstanding border dispute and cross-border guerrilla war between Turkey and Kurds in Northern Iraq. With all the attention focused on Israel's denial of "legitimate self-determination" to the Palestinians, one might be excused for not knowing that it is, "the Kurds [that] make up the largest ethnic group in the world who do not have a nation-state of their own." (See Wiki)

In the end, the solution that Taheri offers for the region is democratization as, "the only credible strategy ... and the only hope..." since,

"... with the exception of Israel and with the partial exception of Turkey, the entire Middle East lacks a culture of conflict resolution, let alone the necessary mechanisms of meaningful compromise. Such a culture can only be shaped through a process of democratization. Only democracies habitually resolve their conflicts through diplomacy rather than war, and only popular-based regimes possess the political strength and the moral will to build peace."

Taheri is certainly not the first or only one to promote this perspective. Condoleeza Rice and the Bush administration have made this point the primary thrust of their Middle East efforts. At her 2005 speech given at the American University in Cairo, Rice famously said, "For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East -- and we achieved neither" (to read the speech in its entirety). Thomas Friedman points out in his book, The World is Flat, that the difference beween an impoverished Muslim in India and an impoverished Muslim in Pakistan is that when the Indian Muslim sees the house of a rich person, he says to himself , "One day I will BE that man" whereas the Pakistani Muslim thinks, "One day I will KILL that man". According to this argument, India's secular democracy, provides young Muslims with equal opportunities and the means to have their voices heard. While this "solution" to the region's myriad problems is clearly well-meaning and even based on solid research that has shown that democracies do not go to war against each other, it flounders upon close scrutiny.

If the experiences of Algeria, Lebanon and Gaza are any indication of how "Democracy in the Middle East" would look, then it is clearly a subversive force that promises even greater instability and bloodshed. In a region characterized by the rifts of tribalism, that is lacking in a tradition of minority rights or tolerance for dissenting opinions (let alone mechanisms for power-sharing), this approach promises to be disastrous. Moreover, while I believe that every heart yearns to be free of tyranny and oppression, what struck me most about the above statement (besides its reductionism), is that it is a classic case of cultural imperialism to assume that Western democratic institutions are the solution to this region's woes. Besides, if we are to believe Taheri that the, "the entire Middle East lacks a culture of conflict resolution, let alone the necessary mechanisms of meaningful compromise", then any Democratic undertaking will necessarily be a top-down imposition.

As such, it is hard to see why "free and fair elections" in Iraq would prompt Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq to lay down their arms and embrace each other as brothers. I find it also highly unlikely and naive to think that democratization in the Middle East will lead to the acceptance of the State of Israel. Frankly, as Taheri points out in this article, Israel is in most ways peripheral to the pervasive and deep-seated problems that typify the region. Nonetheless, as history has repeatedly shown ... at the end of the day, it IS actually more convenient and easier to simply blame the Jews for all of your problems.

(To read the entire article click here.)