Somebody Must Be Paying Attention Out There

BlueTruth is delighted to have had last week's post about Jimmy Carter selected for this week's Haveil Havalim (hosted this week at Simply Jews).


Founded by Soccer Dad, Haveil Havalim is a carnival of Jewish blogs -- a weekly collection of Jewish & Israeli blog highlights, tidbits and points of interest collected from blogs all around the world. It's hosted by different bloggers each week and coordinated by Jack. The term 'Haveil Havalim,' which means "Vanity of Vanities," is from Qoheleth, (Ecclesiastes) which was written by King Solomon. King Solomon built the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and later on got all bogged down in materialism and other 'excesses' and realized that it was nothing but 'hevel,' or in English, 'vanity.'

Hey, we're just happy to be noticed!

Jimmy Carter: There He Goes Again

Jimmy Carter, the darling of the anti-Israel left, continues his effort to give legitimacy to Hamas in the pages of yesterday's New York Times. Anyone with a working knowledge of 20th century history cannot fail to recognize the parallels between Carter and another tragically wrong-headed failed Western leader, Neville Chamberlain.

Actually, Carter's misguided missive adapts surprisingly well to Chamberlain's capitulation at Munich in 1938. Imagine that Carter had been writing at that time...... (you can apply the appropriate "Wayback machine" sound effects and visuals here) and this is what would have appeared in the Times in September 1938:


A COUNTERPRODUCTIVE Washington policy in recent years has been to boycott and punish political factions or governments that refuse to accept United States mandates. This policy makes difficult the possibility that such leaders might moderate their policies.

I, my wife and my son went to Germany. My goal was to learn as much as possible to assist in the faltering peace initiative endorsed by Prime Minister Chamberlain. Although I knew that many in the West were concerned about the government of Germany and leaders of the Nazi Party, I did not receive any negative or cautionary messages about the trip.
The Carter Center had monitored German elections since 1928, including one for parliamentary seats in January 1933. The Nazis had prevailed in several municipal contests, gained a reputation for effective and honest administration and did surprisingly well in the legislative race, displacing the ruling party. Eventually, the Nazis gained control of Germany and opinion polls show them steadily gaining popularity. Since there can be no peace with Germans divided between Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, we at the Carter Center believed it important to explore conditions allowing the Nazis to be brought peacefully back into the discussions.
We met with Nazi leaders from Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland, and after two days of intense discussions with one another they gave these official responses to our suggestions, intended to enhance prospects for peace:
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Germany will accept any agreement negotiated with the government of Czechoslovakia, as long as it is put to a referendum of Germans everywhere.
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When the time comes, the Nazis will accept the possibility of forming a nonpartisan professional government of technocrats to govern the Sudetenland until the next elections can be held.
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The Nazis will also disband the SS if a nonpartisan professional security force, led by the same individuals, can be formed.
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The Nazis will permit Jews held in concentration camps to send letters to their families.
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The Nazis will declare a peaceful border between the Sudetenland and the rest of Czechoslovakia, which might be extended to the rest of Europe at some later time.
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Through more official consultations with these leaders, it may yet be possible to revive and expedite the stalemated peace talks between Germany and its neighbors. In Europe, the path to peace lies in negotiation, not in isolation.

The J Street Lobby-- How Big Is Their Tent?

The newly formed (and long-planned) J Street Lobby describes itself as "the political arm of the pro-Israel pro-peace movement", and has a distinguished list of scholars, policy experts and political activists on its advisory council, as well as many prominent and respected Israelis who have signed a letter of support. Not surprisingly, most of those Israelis are affiliated with the Labor Party, since the specific positions described in that letter are indistinguishable from the platform on which Labor ran in the last election. I suspect that they will also be extremely close to the Democratic Party's platform this year, with notable exception of the language on settlements--J Street straightforwardly calls them an "obstacle to peace" and calls for more vocal US opposition to them.


I don't have a problem with the specifics of their policy proposals, since they very specifically support the existence of Israel as a Jewish state within secure borders, and their positions regarding settlements and borders certainly reflect current US policy as well. They support the status of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and specifically do not call for re-division of the city along the 1949 armistice line, but rather call in advance for American endorsement of any agreement arrived at by Israelis and Palestinians regarding the capital city. Their major point is that US diplomatic involvement needs to be vigorous and ongoing, including engagement with Syria and Iran; they don't address the question of how to deal with Hamas or Hezbollah except by reference to Iran.


J Street's founders intend it to be a counterweight to AIPAC, which they see as being too conservative and too uncritical of Israel. However, while they strive to make this distinction, some of the organizations and individuals that have organized this effort are going to find themselves in a precarious position, because their supporters straddle the line between those who support Israel as a Jewish state and those whose definition of "peace" doesn't necessarily require that. A few are worthy of note:

---Marcia Freedman, founder of B'rit Tzedek v'Shalom and Steve Masters, President of BTvS: In the San Francisco Bay Area, BTvS has worked with the anti-Zionist groups Jewish Voice for Peace, Bay Area Women in Black and the International Solidarity Movement. BTvS was even noted in a newsletter from Amienu (another founding organization of J Street) to refuse to consider themselves Zionists and they would not support even singing Hatikvah at a rally to support last year's Annapolis conference. (Exactly how, then, are they "pro-Israel"?)



---Ricken Patel, Co-founder and Executive Director, Avaaz: Avaaz had a petition on its website several months ago which hysterically proclaimed that "The people of Gaza are being squeezed to death. This week's blackouts have finally reached the attention of the world -- and the international community could help end the blockade. Our obligation is clear. This isn't about Israel vs Palestine or Hamas vs Fatah: this is about 1.5 million human beings locked up in the biggest prison on earth.....The humanitarian crisis of sealed-off Gaza is only getting worse, and a rain of missiles is falling. " Sure makes it sound like a rain of missiles was falling ON Gaza, rather than originating FROM Gaza. Not a mention of the genocidal jihadist ideology of Hamas, not a word about Hamas firing on the crossing points with Israel to prevent the flow of humanitarian supplies. (Good thing that Patel supports Israel; I'd hate to see what opposition would look like).

---Peter Edelman, Board Chair, Larry Garber, Chief Executive Officer, and Norman Rosenberg, Former Chief Executive Officer, New Israel Fund: The New Israel Fund has come under criticism for its funding of Adalah, an Arab rights organization that has called for Israel to allow an unlimited Arab "right of return" that would end Israel's existence as a Jewish state and turn it into yet another Arab country.



J Street also links to many organizations and websites, all of whom state that they are promoting "peace". Many of them are indeed promoting peace while supporting Israel's existence as a Jewish state. Some of them claim to, but suffer from the same problem of finding it too easy to ally with organizations that don't share their support of Israel. For example, the Churches for Middle East Peace include the Protestant churches that have been calling for a one-sided divestment from Israel, and one member organization, the United Methodist Church, recently developed a study guide on the Middle East that claims that Israel's founding constitutes "original sin", the suggestion that Israel's "hysteria" and "paranoiac sense of isolation" have prevented it from making peace, and the assertion that Israel's "denial of the word Palestinian reveals a racism that considers Arabs less than human." (there certainly is voluminous evidence of racism and dehumanization of the other side in the Middle East media-- on the Palestinian side). There's even a link to Richard Silverstein's blog--Silverstein is known for his ad hominem attacks on anyone who dares to question his views, and his site links prominently to Jewish Voice for Peace and promotes Jimmy Carter's "Peace Not Apartheid" book as well as Walt and Mearshimer's "Israel Lobby".

No doubt I will be accused of defaming either J Street as a whole or many of the active, dedicated members of the Zionist community who have signed on to it. In no way do I suggest that the positions of Richard Silverstein or the United Methodist Church are supported by the majority of those whose names appear on the J Street website. But the fact that those extreme positions are represented raises concerns about the future direction of this group.

J Street thinks that the conflict will be between the principles that they support and those of AIPAC and other prominent American pro-Israel groups. They want to draw a distinction between their policies and those of AIPAC, yet many supporters of Israel won't see the two groups as mutually exclusive. It is hard to imagine political candidates that J Street will support who won't also be described by AIPAC as having a "pro-Israel" position. Obviously, not all AIPAC endorsed candidates will be seen as favorable by J Street since AIPAC also endorses candidates that won't meet J Street's more restrictive criteria. J Street clearly envisions itself as being able to provide political cover for elected officials who wish to be more publicly critical of Israel without being tarred as "anti-Semitic", although AIPAC and other prominent American pro-Israel organizations do not equate opposition to specific policies of an Israeli government with anti-Semitism. On occasion, one sided criticism that demonizes, that applies double standards only to Israel, or that delegitimizes Israel has been appropriately labeled as having anti-Semitic content (cf. Carter, Jimmy).

I think their bigger problem will be their own internal conflict. Those groups and individuals that truly do support Israel as a Jewish state will face opposition from within over being seen as too supportive, especially at times of crisis; after all, during the Second Lebanon War there was widespread support across the Zionist political spectrum in Israel for military action against Hezbollah (though there was a lot of disagreement on what form that action should have taken). At the same time, in this country, Jewish Voice for Peace stood prominently with radical anti-Israel and pro-terror groups-- and while they are not part of J Street, they do have sympathetic allies there. I expect that we will see ongoing friction between those who are true supporters of Jewish self-determination in the land of Israel and those for whom even the singing of Hatikvah is problematic.

L’Shanah Habah B'Goshen!

How would the Jewish Voice for Peace think about Pesach?.

Dear Pharaoh;

We’re sorry that we left. We’ll be back soon. We’ve come to understand that there’s a difference in being a Hebrew and having an Exodus, and that we can still be good Hebrews without supporting an Exodus. An Exodus which causes hardship to another, equally as deserving people, the Egyptians, by unlawfully depriving them of their slave labor force, which is vital to their nationhood and national identity. Through the clarity of moral relativism we have come to accept and understand the property rights of the Egyptians’ in our continued servitude is equally as precious to them as our feelings about our role as Hebrews.

We’ll be right back to our places in Goshen so we can resume building the stone cities of Pithom and Ramses. If you could see, the first group of us is beginning to walk backwards into the Red Sea at this very moment as part of the “Phased Plan of Return” to slavery and bondage.

Yours truly,
L’Shanah Habah B”Goshen!

The Children of Israel

Wrong, ANSWER--again

The folks over at International ANSWER appear to have gone off their medication again. You remember them-- the "anti-war" group that cheers Hamas and Hezbollah rocket attacks against Israel; the self-proclaimed commissars of rallies against the US war in Iraq that have managed to shrivel the public turnout at their events down to a few thousand at a time. Basically now irrelevant except to the hard core cadres who show up because of ANSWER's other agendas--Israel-bashing, China-excusing, Darfur-denying and so on. They have now gone as far as to admit that they have accepted dhimmi status with regard to their radical Moslem constituency. Having been instructed by their Moslem groups that they would be offended by public nudity, ANSWER begged the "nudes for peace" contingent not to show up at their recent rally. Of course, ANSWER doesn't view as offensive the "Palestine is our land and the Jews are our dogs" chants or the sonorous voice of Hatem Bazian chanting "intifada, intifada" like some kind of crazed jihadist mantra (wait, that actually IS a crazed jihadist mantra!), or the signs at its rallies displaying naked anti-Semitism. They ignore the fact that the Islamists whose boots they lick are homophobes who excuse "honor killings" and the genocide in Darfur.

We also were able to find out that at least one group allied with ANSWER places its racial/ethnic agenda even ahead of its core political position--opposition to the war in Iraq. Witness these e-mails received by Direct Action to Stop The War about last week's anti-war actions in San Francisco which were aimed not only at US Government offices but also those businesses who were deemed complicit in the war effort:
"Hey all,I just got a call from S---- S---, the owner of the Sprint store at --------, which is on our direct action menu. He told me that that store is an authorized Sprint dealership that's owned by him - it is*not* owned by Sprint. He said that he strongly opposes the war and strongly supports what we're doing, and hopes that we won't target his business.Please make whatever decision you see fit based on this information.(Personally, I think we should let the poor guy off the hook.)Thanks,Adrian"
"I just got an e-mail forwarded to me from someone re: the sprint storeowned by S---- S---- he is a Palestinian who's grandfather passed away 3 days ago, so PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE drop this off your target list. I understand the need to target war profiteers, but i wish more research had been done on the targets. some people are just trying to feed their families, and have almost no choice but to partner with companies such as Sprint. thank you, M----- S---- (S----- is my cousin)"

How did we get these e-mails? Maybe somebody on the inside took offense at not holding Palestinians to the same moral standards? Maybe this person felt that just because you're Palestinian or other "oppressed" Moslem that you can be held accountable for the choices you make, same as everyone else? Naaahhhhhh..... Palestinians are excused for celebrating the cold-blooded murder of yeshiva students so why should a little war profiteering be an issue between friends?

What's next-- is ANSWER going to insist that all women wear burkas to its next rally?

Help! Police! Zionists Are Looking At Us!

When Bay Area Women in Black (BAWIB) decided to do anti-Israel vigils at the corner of Grand and Lake in April of 2007, San Francisco Voice For Israel knew that we had to come and counter. As we stood with them that day, April 7th, 2007, they started what became a recurring theme. They called the police.

Oakland Police sent tactical negotiator Sgt. Hookfin (badge #276) came to deal with the situation. He told us that BAWIB felt threatened by our presence and he demanded that we separate the groups. If we did not, he stated, we would not be having as nice a conversation as we were having at that moment. His initial suggestion was for us to stand in front of the Kentucky Fried Chicken on the next block. This was unacceptable to us. What we did agree at the time was to stand on opposite corners of Grand and Lake, alternating the corners weekly.

Since that time, BAWIB have called the police repeatedly, both in Oakland and in San Francisco. The most notorious incident was when they called the police on Rabbi Bloom and his contingent from Temple Beth Abraham because they crossed by where BAWIB were standing on their way back to their synagogue.
http://www.bluetruth.net/2007/05/help-police-theres-group-of-little-kids.html

With their attempts at harassment failing to deter our presence, they turned to a new tack, facing away from us. On February 9, 2008, instead of facing the Grand Lake Theatre, they decided to face towards Grand Avenue. Adapting to their new strategy, we came up with a new one of our own, we stood on the median island on Grand Ave. We had previously stood there once before, on December 1st, 2007 that would have been without incident had not Felice of BAWIB not come to collect a flyer from us and she was followed by a notoriously hostile and violent BAWIB activist, Ms. Stoller to harass us.

In February, BAWIB decided that our standing in the median, separated from them by 4 lanes of traffic was somehow “violating the agreement,” and furthermore, illegal. They threatened to call the police. On each occasion that BAWIB stood on the corner with the Farmer’s Market, a couple people stood in the median island. No incidents stemmed from this until March 22nd.

Apparently, they had called the police 2 weeks ago for the same reason but by the time police arrived, both groups had gone. It is Oakland, after all, and police have better things to do than rush over at the whim of someone feeling threatened by 3 people standing on a median looking at them. On March 22nd, Sgt. Hookfin arrived in time and came over to talk to both groups. Now, rather than the agreement being about keeping the groups separated, BAWIB and Sgt. Hookfin claim it is about being on different corners. Now they claim they are threatened by us standing on a median island separated by only 4 lanes of heavy traffic. Sgt. Hookfin tried to suggest that it was like militarily “flanking” them by standing in the median.

This time, we were in no mood for appeasement. We have already appeased them several times. We have changed our flyers when they complained, we allowed ourselves to be separated from them. We try to keep our people from interacting with them. We have allowed them to interact with us without calling police. We have allowed them to pass by us multiple times as they bring materials back and forth from their vehicles. This time, we felt that we no longer had any reason to appease. We agree to separation. We did not agree to stay off the median. BAWIB representatives Sharon, Felice, and Ron Klein (who had previously given his name as Ralph) adamantly refused and said this could void the agreement. Felice even yelled at me for filming the conversation. Sharon tried to yell that her son was a police officer who refused to work on Shabbat.

After BAWIB stormed off, we did agree with Sgt. Hookfin to allow whoever got to the median first to have exclusive use of it. We fully expect BAWIB to object, but clearly their issues are not about their feeling “threatened” as separation should have dealt with that and they no longer even feel an agreement is needed for their safety. Their issue is in a countering message being present. This is the reason for the harassment, for the continual calling of the police and for wasting an hour of police time to attempt to muzzle our counter-protest.

Depravity

Last week's terror attack against students at the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva in Jerusalem shows that really, the "peace process" has changed nothing on the Palestinian side, whether it be in their own leaders or their supporters around the world. Their goal in 2008 remains the same as it was in 2000, in 1972, and in 1948: the elimination of Jewish self-determination in our homeland. Their methods remain the same: the random slaughter of as many Jews as possible, especially those going about their daily lives in schools, in restaurants or on buses, to spread terror among the civilian population. Their reaction to these atrocities remains the same: the Palestinian street's celebration of mass murder and the near-deification of the murderers as "martyrs", and their apologists around the world blaming the victims and excusing the perpetrators.

Mahmoud Abbas gave his usual condemnation of the attack. However, expecting him to actually take any steps against Hamas in the West Bank, or even to stop official PA incitement of terrorism, is clearly out of the question. After all, the official PA daily Al Hayat Al Jadida gave the murderer front-page coverage and declared him a "shahid". And Abbas himself got a little careless when speaking in Arabic to the Jordanian newspaper Al-Dustur, boasting about his pride in having "fired the first shot" for Fatah against Israel in 1965 (2 years before Israel took the West Bank from Jordan in the Six Day War) and having taught other terror groups how to conduct "resistance". He did reiterate his position against armed conflict with Israel--"because we are unable. In the future stages, things may be different."

Of course, in Hamas-stan, there's no need for any type of pretense. The scenes of joy caught on camera would suggest something benign and cheerful like a victory in a World Cup soccer match. Despite the supposed dire humanitarian condition in Gaza, there's always candy to hand out and weapons to fire into the air when Jews are killed, and always enough material to make more rockets to launch at Sderot and Ashkelon. It's impossible to watch these without wondering how this raw hatred and addiction to violence will ever be overcome. None of these people are under the illusion that acts of terrorism like this will lead to a Palestinian state alongside Israel, because these are not people who are interested in living alongside a Jewish state. If anyone doubts that, read the Hamas Charter. And to anyone who wishes to claim that this is all just part of a "cycle of violence", try to find a film of Israelis celebrating deaths of Palestinian civilians, or articles in the Israeli press cheering Palestinian civilian deaths (I mean REAL civilians, not the apparent BBC definition of a civilian as an armed fighter in a ski mask who doesn't happen to have an official militia card in his pocket) .

The apologists for Palestinian terror of course had to try to explain this atrocity away as being the fault of the Israelis; I suspect the same people who are so dedicated to "peace and justice" would react in utter horror to a rapist blaming his crime on the victim. Some will undoubtedly claim a similarity to Baruch Goldstein, who was correctly and widely condemned by all but a fringe element of Israeli society (and the worldwide Jewish community), as opposed to being officially lauded as a hero and his murderous acts publicly taught to schoolchildren as an example of heroism. The bleating voices at "Jewish Peace News" managed to talk out of both sides of their mouths at once, condemning the violence and admitting that "Hamas' praise for the operation is both contemptible and chilling" yet then going on to say that "terrorist violence like this is almost always a symptom of Israel's expansionist policies and is unlikely to end until the occupation is over." It makes me wonder; what part of Article 11 of the Hamas Charter don't they believe? "The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up."

Palestinian terror existed before the state of Israel was established , it existed before the West Bank and Gaza were under Israeli control (as Abbas himself proudly pointed out), it existed before the Oslo Accords, and it exists now. The goal now is the same as it was then: "itbach el-Yahud" (slaughter the Jews). Those who think that this appetite for blood will stop when Israel withdraws from the West Bank, as it has already withdrawn from Gaza, are naive at best and fraudulent at worst.

If Israel reacted the way other countries around the world would respond, then Gaza City would look like Grozny after the Russians were through with it, or the Old City of Hama, Syria which Hafez Assad paved with asphalt after eliminating the Muslim Brotherhood (as well as thousands of other citizens) there. The fact that Israel is still willing to conduct talks with Mahmoud Abbas, and that Israel has shown incredible restraint not only after terror attacks like this but also during the daily shelling from Gaza, stands in stark contrast to the bloodlust shared by too many Palestinians and excused by too many of their supporters around the world.