You Can Take the Jew Out of the Ghetto- Taking the Ghetto Out of the Jew Is Tougher

By: David Israel

The Meraglim burdened under the weight of the bounty of the Promised Land

This op-ed is a response to a blog post by Emes v'Emuna.

There's an apocryphal story about the Reform movement's summer program for its high school students, which used to fly them to Israel to tour and work on a kibbutz, etc., then, on the way home, they would stop in Poland and participate in the March of the Living in Auschwitz. But in 2000, during the second intifada, many parents were concerned about their children's safety in Israel — so they only took them to Auschwitz.

Modern Hebrew has a word — "galutiut" (ga-lu-tee-yoot) — which defies translation. It describes the essence of exile, the very depth of ghetto thinking, as in the Der Stürmer-like image of Israelis moving to Berlin, or a Neturei Karta guy holding up an anti-Zionist poster at a rally in downtown Tehran. If you're Jewish and emotionally stable, you'll recognize the essence of galutiut in the words and actions of so many Jews, starting with the meraglim (spies) of 1247 BCE and leading up to left-wing Jews who merrily turn in Arab land dealers to the Palestinian police to be tortured and even executed.

You'll note that God in His mercy forgave the Israelites in the wilderness a lot of mischief, from forging a gold calf to dating those Moabite and Midianite gals at Ba'al Pe'or — sure, He treated those problems locally with LRP (Limited-Range Plague), but the only time He became so angry, He decided to give up on the whole bunch of them, let them die off in the desert and start afresh with their children, was when, from the bottom of their festering, slave's galutiut, they spoke ill of the very idea of living in the Land of Israel because they feared the Promised Land wasn't safe.

Galutiut uses the safety argument more often than any other. I knew personally a woman, now long dead, who in 1938 left Haifa, where she had settled a decade before, to visit all her family members who were still living in Germany to convince them to sell everything and follow her to Haifa. Without an exception, every one of them told her to calm down, Chancellor Hitler is an animal, of course, but his day will come, and meanwhile it's still a lot safer living in Hamburg than in Palestina…

Galutiut often uses values like 'love and pity,' as in the case of the 2005 brute eviction of some 8,000 Jews from their homes in Gush Katif, the Gaza Strip, when there was an outcry from some on the left that the children of those stubborn settlers must be forcibly removed from their parents who are placing their welfare in jeopardy.

Galutiut uses exalted notions like 'justice and truth' to destroy Jewish homes on land that was legally purchased or acquired, giving instead absolute credence to Arab claims of dubious origin. The same galutiut forbids Jewish families from expanding their homes or enclosing a porch in Judea and Samaria communities, because this would harm the chances of the two-state-solution.

Galutiut uses all the above concerns, mixed and matched with examples of individual Jewish failure (Baruch Goldstein & Yigal Amir); divine decrees (I beseech you, daughters of Jerusalem, do not stir up or awaken the love until it is sought); self-righteousness (Why can't you get along with the Arabs?).

Galutiut can be practiced just as easily in downtown Tel Aviv as in Chicago. Galutiut resides in the runaway slaves asking Moses, "Is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?" and in these callously woven lines, care of Rabbi Harry Maryles' Emes Ve-Emuna blog entry The Settlers of Chevron:

"Those settlers are there for only one reason – to assure that not a single inch of Eretz Yisroel is ever turned over to the Palestinians. Especially not Chevron. So wrapped up are they in this goal that they are not beneath committing criminal acts. And in one of the more extreme cases, mass murder was committed by one of their more esteemed members, Dr. Baurch Goldstein."

Air of superiority? Check. Presumption? Check. Unfounded accusation? Check. Guilt by association? Check. Misspelling the name of a biblical city so it reads like the name of a gas station? Also check.

The title of Rabbi Maryles' piece, which is so dripping with galutiut you could drown your pintele Yid in it, says it all: "The Settlers of Chevron." It's not going to be a critique of something specific those settlers have done which offended the author's sensibilities — it is the very concept of settlers who are in the city of the patriarchs, purchased for four hundred silver shekels (roughly 100 silver dollars) by an old Iraqi Jew looking to bury his beloved wife.

In Bereshit Rabbah 79:7, Rav Yudan bar Simon says: "There are three places the nations of the world cannot mislead the Jews by saying You've stolen them: the Cave of the Patriarchs, the Temple Mount, and Joseph's Tomb." And he brings verse citations showing how each one of these were legally bought at the full price. Have you asked yourselves, those who are familiar with the midrash, how come these three locations are the most hotly contested Jewish purchases in our time? Can it be that the other side knows better than we, how crucial they are to our very claim to the land? Isn't it why they shoot our babies with sniper rifles in Hebron, firebomb us on Temple Mount, and burn down Joseph's Tomb?

Writes Emes Ve-Emuna (which in this instance appears to possess neither):

"I don’t know if those settlers did or didn’t have a legal right to occupy those buildings. But in my view they endanger the welfare of their people. Their presence in or near that city is an incitement that is unnecessary and a source of anger to Palestinians. Which increases the chances of more Jews being harmed of killed."

Or, as the meraglim put it (Num. 13:33), reporting on their experience in Kiryat Arba-Hebron: "We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them we felt like grasshoppers, and that's what they thought, too!"

Rabbi Maryles doesn't know if his fellow Jews are right or wrong, all he knows is that they're wrong. And in almost the very language as the meraglim, he is certain their insolence will anger the Palestinian giants who view them as "grasshoppers." If you're not a mystic, you can surely see the parallels between those two texts; if you are a mystic you probably need help getting off the floor right about now (especially the hefty mystics).

The author now drags a great rosh yeshiva into the fray, whom he cites as having said "he would even give up the Kotel if it would bring genuine peace." But, you know, with all due respect, we in Israel have already given up the entire Temple Mount and still there's no fake peace, never mind genuine. Incidentally, was there peace in the land before we had a Kotel to trade for it, in say, 1929? No? 1936? 1948?

Finally, without a doubt the most galuti of galutiut elements in this mix of national and religious alienation and sheer rish'us (meanness), is this part: Pikuach Nefesh. The author justifies maligning fellow Jews, libeling them, dubbing them murderers and thieves, because he cares for their safety. Exactly like the sweet women from Tel Aviv who urged police to tear the children of Gush Katif from their mothers' arms — for their own good.

A Jew sits in Chicago, around him the campuses are rife with live, burning anti-Semitism, 800 miles from his home a bunch of Arabs ran two passenger planes into a major city's tallest buildings, his children are punched in the face by passing gentiles because it seems like a good idea, his country is infiltrated by anti-Semitic zealots, he can see how, across the Atlantic, hundreds of thousands of fellow Jews are preparing to flee their homes for fear of ethnic persecution — and he worries about the Pikuach Nefesh of the largest Jewish community on the planet, with the strongest army in its region and then some, with a robust economy and a vivacious, multicolored society. He worries that the Hebron settlers' "presence in or near that city is an incitement that is unnecessary and a source of anger to Palestinians."

There's only one solution to this ultimate galutiut, the galutiut of an educated man who knows his Torah and yet concocts from it a poisonous potion: stay. That's the worst divine punishment. Stay where you are, in Chicago, Illinois. Don't come over, don't embrace the biblical promise, don't get excited over the gifts from God the rest of us are sharing. Just spend the next 40 years exactly where you are, next to Lake Michigan, in a wilderness of your own making. 

The Way Out of Oslo

By Moshe Feiglin

The problem with Israel’s security perception is that Bennett, who said that Defense Minister Ya’alon and the entire military suffer from conceptual fixation, is right. And so is Ya’alon, who accused Bennett of political pandering.

True, the most sophisticated weapons will not work if the military is plagued with conceptual fixation. But when the person who makes that claim suggests no alternatives other than to “accept reality, get out of there once and for all and open new horizons for the Arabs with security oversight” – in other words, a contradictory and glossed over version of the very same conceptual fixation – then Ya’alon is also right and Bennett’s word are nothing more than cynical politics and childish whims bereft of loyalty and integrity.

We cannot separate our security perception from how we perceive ourselves in broader, geopolitical terms.

The handshakes of Rabin and Netanyahu with the head of the Organization for the Liberation of the Entire Land of Israel from all the Jews (Arafat) and the signing of the Oslo Accords put Israel put Israel into a morally inferior position. For the first time in its history (and in Jewish history) Israel recognized the sovereignty (as it were) of another nation over Israel’s Biblical heartland. From that cursed historical moment, we turned ourselves into colonialist occupiers of our own Land. Israel lost its sense of justice and the snowball of loss of legitimacy rapidly gained speed.

Until that collapse, all of Israel’s governments had clearly understood the implications of recognizing the sovereignty of the ‘Palestinian nation’ over Israel’s heartland. “I am a Palestinian,” former PM Golda Meir explained, fully aware that affording legitimacy to foreign sovereignty would necessarily lead to the loss of legitimacy for Israel’s sovereignty on both sides of the Green Line.

After so many years of all-out war and total boycott of the PLO – a successful policy that brought about a parallel boycott of the PLO by the US and many European countries – the Oslo architects understood that in order to afford legitimacy in the eyes of the Israeli public to the collapse that they initiated, they must enlist the approval of the Israeli Holy Grail: the security ethos, or the IDF.

Senior officers took part in the negotiations and contributed their security expert halo to the brilliant idea that claimed that surrendering Israel’s heartland to an armed terror organization would bring peace and security to our country. There was not even one righteous person in the entire Senior Command who opposed the move and refused to cooperate with it. (As opposed to what took place just a few years ago, when Netanyahu ordered Mossad Chief Meir Dagan and Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi to prepare to attack Iran. The two refused. In other words, senior defense officials are certainly capable of refusing orders when it serves their interest. The fact that Netanyahu did not fire and prosecute the two puts all the responsibility for Iran’s current victory, its military buildup, its expanded influence in the Mid East and its quick and easy nuclear viability whenever it so chooses – squarely on Netanyahu’s shoulders).

In the two decades that have passed since the Oslo Accords were signed, all the main establishments in Israel – including the defense establishment –promote only those people who toe the Oslo line. A very thick layer of media and cultural personalities, academics, various research institutes, politicians, economists and mainly military brass – owe their personal and financial status to their alignment with the Oslo Newspeak.

Nobody – Right or Left – dares venture past the borders of the Oslo fixation. It makes no difference that Israelis still remember how they went shopping in Gaza. Tens of our soldiers killed in Gaza with every armed clash and missiles that threaten all of Israel’s cities seem preferable to the average Israeli to a return to our previous reality. Why? Because. Because no public figure dares to truly challenge the Oslo Fixation. No little boy is shouting the truth and we have become accustomed to praising the Emperor’s New Clothes. Bennett is also extremely careful to speak strictly within the boundaries of Politically Correct. The contradictory quote at the beginning of this article (laughably proposed as an alternative for conceptual fixation) is a blatant example of glorious Osloidian euphemism).

During the Defensive Shield Operation, Tel Aviv was bombarded by missiles for two weeks and the IDF could not stop it. After he gave a long, boring debriefing to the Knesset, I asked the Deputy Chief of Staff if he can tell me “who is the enemy”.

I never got a clear answer.

The simple answer should have been ‘Hamas’. But the implication of that answer would be that in order to win the war, Israel would have to destroy the Hamas. And that would have forced the IDF to rule Gaza once again. This would have meant the final collapse of the Oslo concept. And the Deputy Chief of Staff had built his career on aligning himself with Oslo. That is why Israelis must sacrifice the best of their sons time and again in Gaza: Not to win – but simply to preserve the Oslo concept.

“For me, Oslo means that you can forget that you are a Jew,” said the young writer Dorit Rabinian when the Oslo Accords were signed.

The root of the issue is identity. The attempt to flee it is the energy that motivated the Oslo process. It is impossible to emerge from the Oslo fixation and develop a new military strategy without re-connecting with our identity.

Of course the army must be made more effective, quick, sophisticated and triumphant. We must endorse and thank all those who are working in that direction – especially the current Chief of Staff.

But when you have decided to forget who you are, even your Chief of Staff cannot identify the enemy. And when you cannot identify the enemy, you cannot win. And when there is no victory, the war doesn’t end. And when the war doesn’t end, peace does not begin.

Forward!

A Torah Thought for Parashat B’Shalach 

By Moshe Feiglin

And the Children of Israel walked on the dry land in the sea and the water was a wall for them on their right and on their left. (From this week’s Torah portion, B’shalach, Exodus 14:29)

The splitting of the Red Sea, with walls of water standing upright and not drowning the Children of Israel is certainly a great miracle. But a major part of the miracle was the fact that the Children of Israel recognized the event as a miracle in real time.

The existence of the Nation of Israel is not natural. Frederick the Great of Prussia asked a Lutheran minister for proof of G-d. “The Jews,” replied the minister, “the Jews.” This non-Jew wisely saw the walls of water to the right and to the left of the Nation of Israel throughout the millennia and came to the conclusion that most people arrive at only when seeing a miracle with their own eyes.

Today, the walls of water still stand to our right and to our left. As in the time of the Exodus, the only path open to us remains the same: “And G-d said to Moses, ‘Speak to the Children of Israel and let them go forward’.”

Shabbat Shalom.

Armed with Faith on the Way to Complete Redemption

By HaRav Dov Begon
Rosh HaYeshiva, Machon Meir

“G-d did not lead them along the Philistine Highway, although it was the shorter route. G-d’s consideration was that if the people encountered armed resistance, they would lose heart and return to Egypt” (Exodus 13:17-18). 

Rashi explains that if the Israelites took the simplest, straightest route, they would return to Egypt when they encountered war. G-d therefore led them around from the simple route to a more roundabout route. 

Indeed, in order to deal with warfare and other confrontations and not to collapse and flee, we need spiritual strength. We need strong faith and a strong spirit. 

When the Jewish People left Egypt, they were a nation of slaves. Slavery over hundreds of years had left its imprint upon them. The Israelites were like the slave who says, “I love my master. I shall not go out to freedom,” for fear of future wars and existential conflicts. 

The cure for people who fear such wars over their independence and freedom is to become stronger in faith and to cling to the Torah. This is what G-d did for Israel in the Desert: “G-d made the people take the roundabout path, by way of the desert” (Exodus 13:18). It was there in the desert that Israel undertook the yoke of Heaven and the yoke of Torah. For forty years they underwent a process of consolidation as a nation. And then, they went up to Eretz Yisrael “chamushim,” well armed (13:18). They were well armed with faith, well armed with the five books of the Torah [Chumash], well armed both spiritually and emotionally, knowing why they were going up to Eretz Yisrael. 

Today, the Jewish People need to become stronger and to arm themselves with spiritual resources and with strong faith, imbibing from our sources, our holy Torah. Through this we will be privileged to continue ascending upward on the winding path, sometimes laden with obstacles and difficulties, towards complete redemption. 

Looking forward to complete salvation, 
Shabbat Shalom,
Tu B'Shvat Sameach

Wind, Fire or Magnet?: HaRav Nachman Kahana on Parashat Beshalach 5776

BS”D  Parashat Beshalach 5776 Rabbi Nachman Kahana Choose: Wind, Fire or Magnet? Our parsha begins: ויהי בשלח פרעה את העם ולא נחם אלהים דרך ארץ פלשתים כי קרוב הוא כי אמר אלהים פן ינחם העם בראתם מלחמה ושבו מצרימה: ויסב אלהים את העם דרך המדבר ים סוף וחמשים עלו בני ישראל מארץ מצרים: When Pharaoh sent the nation out, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might renege and return to Egypt.” So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of Egypt “chamushim”. Rashi cites two interpretations for the word “chamushim”. One, based on the root CHAMESH meaning five, because only one in five Jews agreed to leave Egypt; and the other from the root CHIMUSH, meaning armed with weapons. Are these really two different interpretations? We shall see later. Four millennia ago – for some indefinable, unparalleled, and irrational reason – the infinite Creator chose our ancestors and us to be His Jewish nation. Of all the gentiles at the time of Avraham, and of all those who were yet to be born, only the Jewish people are “wedded” to the Creator, as so sublimely depicted by King Shlomo in his Shir HaShirim (Song of Songs). There are Jews who distance themselves from Judaism by overlooking our unique history and our God-appointed mission. And there are also loyal Jews who are constantly overviewing our relationship with HaShem in an effort to attain a degree of understanding of the infinite being we call HaShem. A major, if not the ultimate, conclusion produced by an overview of Jewish history is the ongoing process of winnowing out large portions of people – similar to a healthy body that rejects foreign organs and detrimental intruders. Yishmael was excluded from being a Jew, as was Esau. Of the many millions of Jewish men who were slaves in Egypt, only Yehoshua bin Nun and Calev ben Yefuneh entered the Land at the end of the 40-year sojourn in the desert. Hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions, of Jews of the northern tribes were exiled to points east by King Shalmanesser of Assyria and were lost to the Jewish nation. Who can estimate the number of Jews who were cut off from our people by conscious assimilation? And the process is continuing in full strength to this day. What is behind the process? What are the criteria according to which one Jew remains connected to the nation while another is lost? These questions will remain unanswered until HaShem chooses to reveal His secrets. The process cannot be denied or tempered, as it continues “full steam” to this very day as demonstrated by the following example: A very large heap of wood shavings is mixed together with small bits of steel shavings, and we are required to separate out the wood shavings in order to be left only with the metal. There are three possible methods to achieve it: A powerful wind would remove the lighter wood, fire can burn the pile leaving only the steel bits, or the steel can be drawn out by a magnet. The strong winds of assimilation have removed countless numbers of our people, far more numerous than those who were murdered for being Jews. This process is being accelerated in our time through the conservative and reform movements which are busily undermining the basic framework of our nation. The second process – fire has decimated countless numbers of Jews through Christian and Islamic acts up to the Second World War. Despite the fact that many pure righteous tzaddikim were also murdered, the Gemara in Bava Kama states that when a decree is implemented in a specific place, all those who are there – righteous and not – are victims. The magnet is the attraction that brings an authentic Jewish soul to return to, and plant his roots in, Eretz Yisrael. To return to the question: Rashi’s two interpretations for the word “chamushim,” the Torah uses to describe the Jewish people’s exodus from Egypt: “one fifth” vs “armed with weapons” are seemingly contradictory, conflicting and autonomous. However, they are both correct in their depiction of the exodus. Indeed, only twenty percent of the Jews left Egypt. But who were those 20% who chose to leave a bright and promising future of the nascent Jewish nation in the golden land of the Nile? They were the small minority who were prepared to take up arms and fight for the liberation of the Land promised by HaShem to the descendants of Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya’akov. The other 80% had other plans for their lives of freedom which ran contrary to the wishes of HaShem; and hastened their death in the plague of darkness. As things stand, Medinat Yisrael exists on the thin olive-colored line of Tzahal who physically defend the Land and those who actively and sincerely support them by their Torah and mitzvot. That is the reality which has been created by men of evil intent who would seek the utter destruction of the Medina followed by the annihilation of world Jewry. What will be? We are approaching one of the year’s four ‘roshei hashana’ (New Years for different issues) – the 15th of Shvat. This is the time when one is invited to suggest predictions for the future, as “far out” as those predictions might be. I put forth two: 1- Iran has been more than forthcoming in all the demands of the IAEA and the five signatory nations to the nuclear agreement, including the removal of the core at their central reactor. Too sweet! The future will show that Iran, with their newly-acquired hundreds of billions of dollars, has purchased atomic weapons from North Korea. Was the US President Obama aware of this during all the deliberations, and did he tacitly agree in order to advance the ideals of JIhad? Time will tell! 2- As Arab acts of violence and murder increase in ferocity and frequency, we can expect that Tzahal will be forced to increase its involvement in the everyday functions of the Medina. There will be a curtailment of the freedoms that the Arabs, as a group, now enjoy; and possible restoration of the military government over Arab areas which was rescinded in 1963-64. No matter what might appear to be on the surface, the Jewish nation in Eretz Yisrael is steadily striding toward the final geula, hand-in-hand with our Father in Heaven.  Shabbat Shalom, Nachman Kahana Copyright © 5776/2016 Nachman Kahana

Native American Tribal Support for the State of Israel

Israeli Flag & Metis Flag

The Palestinians and their supporters have attempted to present their struggle as parallel to that of the Native Americans. This push was led by George Bisharat, an anti-Israel activist whose ancestors only immigrated to the holy land in the 1920’s, yet who nevertheless insists that he is an indigenous person who was forcefully uprooted, just like the Native Americans were. In reality, the Jews are Israel’s indigenous people, but that has not stopped pro-Palestinian organizations such as Adalah and the Students for Justice in Palestine from playing on the Native American struggle to serve their own interests. However, numerous Native Americans have rejected any comparison between their struggle and that of the Palestinians, preferring to identify with Israel instead.

As Ryan Bellerose, a member of the Métis nation in Canada, wrote, “The Palestinians are not like us. Their fight is not our fight. We natives believe in bringing about change peacefully, and we refuse to be affiliated with anyone who engages in violence targeting civilians. I cannot remain silent and allow the Palestinians to gain credibility at our expense by claiming commonality with us. I cannot stand by while they trivialize our plight by tying it to theirs, which is largely self-inflicted. Our population of over 65 million was violently reduced to a mere 10 million, a slaughter unprecedented in human history. To compare that in whatever way to the Palestinians’ story is deeply offensive to me. The Palestinians did lose the land they claim is theirs, but they were repeatedly given the opportunity to build their state on it and to partner with the Jews — and they persistently refused peace overtures and chose war. We were never given that chance. We never made that choice.”

Chief Anne Richardson of the Rappahannock Tribe in Virginia and Kathy Cummings-Dickinson, head of the Lumbee tribes in North Carolina

To the contrary of Palestinian assertions, Bellerose sees parallels between the Native American struggle and that of the Jewish people. He asserted, “The Jews also suffered genocide and were expelled from their homeland. They were also rejected by everyone and forced to wander. Like us, they rebelled against imperial injustice when necessary and, despite their grievances, strived for peace whenever possible. Like us they were given a tiny sliver of their land back after centuries of suffering and persecution, land that nobody else had wanted to call home until then. Like us, they took that land despite their misgivings and forged a nation from a fractured and wounded people. And like us, they consistently show a willingness to compromise for the good of their people.”

Ryan Bellerose is far from the only Native American to feel this way. Santos Hawk Blood, a full blooded Native American who is an activist for Native American land and fishing rights, similarly proclaimed, “One indigenous people should support another indigenous people. I come from the same Apaches as Cochese and Geronimo, the Chiricahua people from Southern Arizona. Like all Apaches, we were warriors. When more passive Indians were attacked by marauding groups, we fought for them. It is a part of Apache culture to stand up for oppressed people and to respect all people who cherish their ancestral land. I admire the people who take a stand, and that’s why I admire the people of Israel: They’re people who stand up to defend their homeland. We are not with the Palestinian people.” His mother also declared, “The Jews are people like us. They have been forced from their land, forced to move from place to place. They have suffered like us and have been attacked wherever they go.”

Chief Anne Richardson of the Rappahannock Tribe in Virginia and Kathy Cummings-Dickinson, head of the Lumbee tribes in North Carolina, are supporters of the State of Israel as well. When the two female chiefs visited Israel in 2009, they declared, “We are here to deliver a message to the residents of Israel: Stand firm and united against the threats and pressure. We want to encourage Israel and the newly elected Knesset not to give in to those who try to pressure them to give up parts of the homeland. Surrender to this pressure is not a recipe for peace, but rather war. We stand beside you.” As Native Americans, they understand more than anyone else the consequences of attempting to give up land for peace.

Indeed, the Jewish people, who have always sympathized with the oppressed and have a history of assisting the Native Americans in their just struggle for civil and human rights. In 1973, over 500 Native American activists were jailed after battling with American forces at Wounded Knee. Over 80 percent of the lawyers assisting these Native American activists were Jewish. Israel has also formed a close relationship with the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana. Israel assists them with agriculture and trade, and the Coushatta have shown their appreciation by recognizing May 14th, Israel’s Independence Day, as a national Coushatta holiday. The Coushatta nation, like many other Native Americans, feel a special bond with the Jewish people due to the fact that both peoples have endured centuries of persecution, relocation and prejudice, while holding on to a strong commitment to their ancestral homeland.

By Rachel Avraham

Palestinians: Western Media's Ignorance and Bias

By Khaled Abu Toameh

• Foreign journalists based in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv have for years refused to report on the financial corruption and human rights violations that are rife under the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas regimes. Palestinian "suffering" and the "evil" of the Israeli "occupation" are the only admissible topics.
• Another Ramallah-based colleague shared that a few years ago he received a request from a cub correspondent to help arrange an interview with Yasser Arafat. Except at that point, Arafat had been dead for several years. Fresh out of journalism school and unknowledgeable about the Middle East, the journalist was apparently considered by his editors a fine candidate for covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
• Western reporters would do well to remember that journalism in this region is not about being pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian. Rather, it is about being "pro" the truth, even when the truth runs straight up against what they would prefer to believe.

Two Western journalists recently asked to be accompanied to the Gaza Strip to interview Jewish settlers living there.

No, this is not the opening line of a joke. These journalists were in Israel at the end of 2015, and they were deadly serious.

Imagine their embarrassment when it was pointed out to them that Israel had completely pulled out of the Gaza Strip ten years ago.

You have to have some pity for them. These foreign colleagues were rookies who aimed to make an impression by traveling to a "dangerous" place such as the Gaza Strip to report on the "settlers" living there. Their request, however, did not take anyone, even my local colleagues, by surprise.

Continue Reading Article 

Sweden's Afghan "Rapefugees"

By Ingrid Carlqvist 

• Some 90 young men -- "mostly Afghan refugee kids," according to police -- were apprehended in connection with the mass sexual assaults at the concert.
• A recurring theme in recent articles by prominent feminists is the assertion that ethnic Swedish men act exactly the same as migrant gang-rapists.
• One can draw only one conclusion: Feminists would rather protect Muslim men from criticism than protect Swedish women from sexual assaults.
• None of the women's shelters would admit that the mass sexual abuse of Swedish women might have anything to do with the perpetrators' ethnicity or religion. They did not wish to "generalize," they said -- then hung up.
• What Swedish politicians intend to do about the "Rapefugees" that are now in the country is anyone's guess.

Scenes from a Malmö summer music festival... Left: Four young men surround and sexually assault a young woman. Right: Police arrest a suspect, as sexual assault victims cry in the background. The photographer reported that Swedish girls were sexually assaulted by groups of young men "of foreign background."

On New Year's Eve, the same kind of mass sexual assaults that happened to women in Cologne -- in Arabic called the "Taharrush" game -- also took place in Sweden, but the police and the media have chosen to bury the information. The men, it turned out, were mainly Afghan, and claiming to be "unaccompanied refugee children."

In reality, many of them are much older than 18, and are now commonly referred to with the recently coined name, "Rapefugees," rather than "refugee children."

Continue Reading Article 

Europe 2016: A study in Self-Cannibalization

By Martin Sherman

Muslim migrants off the coast of Malta. Photo: US Navy via Wikimedia Commons.

“It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion.” — R. Inge, dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, 1915 

“Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.” – Karl Popper, On the Paradox of Tolerance, in The Open Society and Its Enemies, 1945 … 

Many Western Europeans, from the man on the street to the cop on the corner, from the politician in Parliament to the immigration official at the border, have long considered it their obligation… to tolerate intolerance. – from “Tolerating Intolerance: The Challenge of Fundamentalist Islam in Western Europe,” Partisan Review, 2002.

As the massive influx of Muslim immigrants engulf the European Union and press against the gates of North America  today, bringing with them much of what they were attempting to flee, the appalling truth is becoming increasingly clear.

Across the Western world today, political liberalism is undergoing a process of self-cannibalization. It is being devoured by the very values which made it into arguably the most successful and influential socio-political doctrine in modern history.

At the very least, it is being complicit in actively facilitating its own demise through an unrestrained and undiscerning compulsion to apply these values universally – even when such application is not only inappropriate but detrimental to those values.

Devotees of political liberalism fervently advocate – quite correctly – the need to acknowledge the diversity of humanity and to accept the existence of those different from us, i.e., the “Other.”

However, they then go on to advocate – with equal fervor – something that in effect empties the previous acknowledgment of all significance, i.e., that we relate to all the diverse “Others” as equals.

For what is the point of acknowledging diversity if we are called upon to ignore the possible ramifications of that diversity and to relate to those discernibly different from us as if they were essentially the same as us? Prima facie, this is absurdly self-contradictory.

For surely the awareness of difference raises the possibility that different attitudes (and actions) toward the “Other” may well be called for.

Although acknowledging diversity necessarily negates equality, this does not a priori mean that “Ours” is morally superior to “Theirs” – although the plausible assumption is that “We” have a subjective preference for “Ours” over “Theirs.”

This, of course, might entail certain practical ramifications for the preservation of “Ours” lest it be consumed by “Theirs” – depending on “Their” appetites and aspirations.

As the foregoing citation from W.R. Inge underscores, it would be injudicious to relate to carnivores and herbivores with an undiscriminating sense of egalitarianism. Indeed, if one is not mindful of the differences between oneself and the “Other” (say with regard to dietary preferences or predatory predilections), disaster may well be unavoidable.

Note that making such a diagnosis of difference does not necessarily imply a value judgment as to the relative moral merits of devouring flesh or grazing grass. However, operationally, it is a distinction that is essential for the preservation of grass-grazers and – and no less pointedly – for the shepherd charged with their welfare.

For no matter how sympathetic to, or appreciative of, the untamed majesty of predators one might be, the fate of the flock is likely to be grim if it is left to graze in wolf-frequented territory with nothing more coercive to protect it than an appeal for understanding.

Now while I do not wish to push Inge’s ovine-lupine analogy too far, those who would dismiss it as overly facile would do well to recall that political liberalism has faced several challenges in the last century from adversaries which could plausibly be viewed as predatory.

It has had to contend with ideologies that were totalitarian, expansionary and irreconcilably inimical to its core values of socio-cultural tolerance and individual liberty.

There was, for example, the kinetic clash with Nazism and the ideological clash with Communism. Political liberalism withstood them and prevailed.

It is facing another fateful encounter in this century: The existential clash with Islamism – a foe no less totalitarian, no less expansionary and no less irreconcilably inimical to its core values.

It is far from certain that this time it will prevail.

The major source of peril today is the reluctance – indeed the resolute refusal – to acknowledge the emerging threat. True, there were sympathizers in the West for both the Nazi and Soviet causes, which both strove to eliminate our democratic freedoms and way of life.

However, the denial we are witnessing today seems qualitatively different. Leading liberal opinion-makers in mainstream intellectual establishment appear totally incapable of conceiving (or at least, totally unwilling to acknowledge that they are capable of conceiving) of the “Other” as anything but a darker skin-toned version of themselves – with perhaps somewhat more exotic tastes in dress and a greater penchant for spicy food, but with essentially the same value system as theirs, or at least one not significantly incompatible with it.

Indeed, there seems to be an overriding inability to admit the possibility that the “Other” is in fact fundamentally different – i.e. genuinely “Other” – and may hold entirely different beliefs as to what is good and bad, what is legitimate and what is not.

It is of little practical consequence whether this is the product of an overbearing intellectual arrogance, which precludes the possibility of any alternative value system, or of an underlying moral cowardice, which precludes the will to defend the validity of one’s own value system.

The result is the ongoing retreat from the defense of liberty and tolerance in the face of an ever-emboldened, intolerant Muslim militancy – not only across the Islamic world but within the urban heart of many Western nations as well.

Even more serious, it has undermined the capacity for honest debate, for accurate assessment of strategic geopolitical shifts… and for formulating timely and effective responses to deal with them.

Take the Arab Spring, for example, which much of the mainstream media heralded as the dawning of a new spirit of freedom and enlightenment from the Maghreb to the Persian Gulf. Yet over half a decade, this naïve optimism has been dashed to pieces on the hard rocks of recalcitrant reality.

Nothing that has occurred  has even remotely justified the rosy forecast  as to the prospective emergence of Arab regimes, founded on values /processes akin to those of Western democracy.

The politically correct endeavor to shy away from harsh truths has introduced an almost Orwellian atmosphere of 1984 mind control into the debate on the ramifications of Islam for political liberalism.

Pronouncements almost on a par with the “War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery” and “Ignorance is Strength” employed by “The Party” to control the dystopian state of Oceania in George Orwell’s classic novel of pervasive dictatorship are emerging with disturbing frequency.

For example, US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in effect pronounced that “religious fundamentalism is secular” when he characterized the radical Muslim Brotherhood as an organization that is “largely secular.”

A similar instance of convoluted, nonsensical gobbledygook came from current CIA Director   (then Obama-administration’s homeland security adviser)  James O. Brennan, when he made the astounding claim that accurately defining the threat would exacerbate it: “Nor do we describe our enemy as jihadists or Islamists, because jihad is a holy struggle. [C]haracterizing our adversaries this way would actually be counterproductive”.

So by reorganizing the rhetoric we will somehow dispel the misperceptions, from which the planners/perpetrators of wholesale carnage in the name of Islam apparently suffer, as to the sources of their beliefs and the nature of their motivations?

But perhaps the pinnacle of Orwellian endeavor came from then-British home secretary Jacqui Smith, in a 2009 Der Spiegel   interview, who took it upon herself to bring home to radicalized UK Muslims that they were not who they thought they were!

In a breathtaking stroke of self-contradictory double talk, she presumed to dub the acts of terrorism perpetrated by Islamists in the name of Islam as “anti-Islamic activity.”

All of this comprises the rhetorical context for the more recent sycophantic oxymoronic drivel from Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton that there in “nothing Islamic” about the atrocities committed in the name of Islam by incontrovertibly Islamic organizations.

Clearly, in an intellectual climate such as this – where truth is condemned and dismissed as politically incorrect hate-speech – no effective response can be marshaled against the gathering storm facing Western civilization and the values of political liberalism that underpin it.

Such reticence and evasion was not always prevalent. In an era long before political-correctness crippled the ability to articulate the truth in the public sphere, far-sighted men warned of the impending clash.

Thus seven decades ago, Hilaire Belloc, the prominent Anglo-French writer and historian, raised the trenchant question: “Will not perhaps the temporal power of Islam return and with it the menace of an armed Muhammadan world… reappear again as the prime enemy of our civilization?” (The Great Heresies, 1938)

He was not alone in his sense of foreboding.

In the first edition of his The River War, published in 1899, Winston Churchill set out a withering critique of the effect Islam has on its followers, its debilitating effect on economies of nations that embrace it, and the enslavement of its luckless women.

While he admits that “individual Muslims may show splendid qualities,” he contrasts this with realities on the collective level, where “the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.”

Few who page through a recent Arab Human Development Report sponsored by the United Nations and independently authored by intellectuals and scholars from Arab countries, would dispute this today.

Churchill goes on to warn: “No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Muhammadanism is a militant and proselytizing faith… and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science… the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”

But how long will the West remain “cradled in the strong arms of science?”

This is surely a question that should concentrate minds in the West. It is undoubtedly one that is gathering accelerating urgency in the wake of its appalling capitulation last July to the Iranian theocracy, bent  on its thinly disguised pursuit of weaponized nuclear capabilities — and intercontinental reach for their delivery.

Allow me conclude with the observations of a gay intellectual regarding the propagation of Islam in Europe, where private Islamic academies – subsidized by European governments – “reinforce the Koran-based…morality learned at home that prescribes severe penalties for female adulterers and rape victims (though not necessarily for rapists), and that demands… that homosexuals be put to death.”

With some foreboding he remarks: “If fundamentalist Muslims in Europe do not carry out these punishments, it is not because they’ve advanced beyond such thinking, but because they don’t have the power.”

Not yet.

This article first appeared in The Jerusalem Post.

Former Harvard President Larry Summers Calls BDS Efforts ‘Deplorable’

From the Algemeiner

Former Harvard President Larry Summers. Photo: Screnshot

Former Harvard President Larry Summers called recent initiatives by US academic associations to boycott Israeli universities and academics deplorable, during a comprehensivediscussion with The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol.

Discussing his own 2012 confrontation with students and faculty who sought to remove all Israeli investments from Harvard’s endowment, he warned against such moves.

“The idea that Israel should be singled out as a human rights abuser was morally insensate,” he said. “It seemed to me that there wasn’t much question that if an African country was singled out for censure and there was no clear grounds for why that African country was worse or different than a number of European or Asian countries, I had no doubt that it would be seen in many quarters as racist.”

“I chose words that were carefully selected,” he said. “I said that the proposals, if they were implemented, would be antisemitic in their effect, even if not — because I believe the people who proposed them were well-intentioned if misguided — even if not antisemitic in their intent, so I said antisemitic in effect if not intent.”

Summers said it was part of his objective to be controversial. “I think many people hadn’t thought about it that carefully, and who had a general kind of progressive sense of alienation from the peace process probably just didn’t want to contemplate the possibility that they were near antisemitism and decided not to push the issue as hard as they might otherwise have in the face of what I had said. And certainly a number of students who if they’d had the current vocabulary would have felt they’d been the victim of microagressions in the form of feeling identified with Israel and having Israel attacked thanked me very much for what I had said and done.”

“And for a number of years afterwards the divest Israel movement [BDS] was relatively quiescent. It’s been back in force in recent years. The American Studies Association, the American Anthropological Association, a variety of academic associations have announced their intention to boycott Israeli scholars or to boycott interaction with Israeli universities and I think it’s deplorable.”

“And it matters,” he continued. “My wife visited a prominent Israeli university last winter and the person who introduced her spoke about how much this meant … They felt so stunned by the idea that they studied America and that scholars in American Studies would not come and participate in their colloquia and it had an enormous impact.”

Summers said it was “deplorable that Harvard continues to maintain its institutional membership in the ASA.”

In addition to serving as Harvard president from 2001-2006, Summers was treasury secretary in the Clinton administration and director of the National Economic Council.

Summers’ full address on the matter, at morning prayers on Sept. 17, 2002, went as follows:

Of course academic communities should be and always will be places that allow any viewpoint to be expressed. And certainly there is much to be debated about the Middle East and much in Israel’s foreign and defense policy that can be and should be vigorously challenged.

But where anti-Semitism and views that are profoundly anti-Israeli have traditionally been the primary preserve of poorly educated right-wing populists, profoundly anti-Israel views are increasingly finding support in progressive intellectual communities.

Serious and thoughtful people are advocating and taking actions that are anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent.

Another Proud Palestinian Parent

By Stephen M. Flatow

In this photo published on the Facebook page of the Palestinian Fatah faction, the mother of late Palestinian terrorist Muhammed Shamasneh makes a “V” sign with her right hand. The caption reads, “How great you are, O mother of the Martyr.” Photo: Palestinian Media Watch.

JNS.org – “I am proud of my son,” the father of 16-year-old Morad Adais, of the Palestinian village of Dura, declared this week.

What do you suppose was the occasion for this burst of parental pride? What was it that young Morad did which so pleased his father? An impressive report card? Helping with home repairs? Taking care of younger siblings?

No, what Morad did to bring honor to the Adais family was that he broke into the home of a young Israeli Jewish mother of six and brutally stabbed her to death.

Not that the elder Adais is the exception. On the contrary, his response is the rule in Palestinian society.

Just two weeks ago, the official Facebook page of the Fatah movement posted a large photo of another Palestinian parent expressing pride at the deeds of a murderous child. On Jan. 5, Fatah published a photo of the mother of the late Muhammed Shamasneh. She is smiling broadly and making a “V” sign with her right hand. The caption under the photo reads: “How great you are, O mother of the Martyr.”

Shamasneh, 22, was a Palestinian terrorist who stabbed three Jews near the Jerusalem central bus station last Oct. 12, and then was shot by the police. Fatah, which is glorifying Shamasneh, is chaired by Mahmoud Abbas, who is also president of the “moderate” Palestinian Authority (PA).

The website of Palestinian Media Watch (www.palwatch.org) overflows with examples of pro-terrorism statements by parents of Palestinian terrorists.

Advocates of the Palestinian cause are always telling us that ordinary Palestinians are just like ordinary folks everywhere. They say Palestinian moms and dads have the same concerns as moms and dads in America, Israel, and anyplace else.

Then-president Bill Clinton epitomized this attitude when he met with Israeli parents of terror victims on Dec. 15, 1998, and then traveled to Gaza to meet with Palestinian parents of imprisoned terrorists. The president told reporters: “If I had met them in reverse order, I would not have known which ones were Israeli and which Palestinian.”

Even back then, the president should have been able to tell the difference. The Israeli parents were the ones mourning the deaths of their innocent children. The Palestinian parents were the ones cheering on their children for murdering the Israeli children.

The problem is not just individual Palestinian parents endorsing their children’s terrorism. The problem is that the official Palestinian leadership actively encourages such attitudes. Consider how the PA’s Minister of Women’s Affairs, Haifa Al-Agha, recently explained the “uniqueness” of Palestinian women: “The Palestinian women’s uniqueness differentiates her from the women of the world, as [only] she receives the news of her son’s Martyrdom with cries of joy.”

Her statement appeared in the official daily newspaper of the “moderate” PA, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, on Nov. 7, 2015. Such declarations appear in the official PA news media every day. They send a very specific message to the Palestinian public; and it’s clear that the message has been received, loud and clear.

As much as we wish that the Palestinians were moderate, reasonable people who hate violence and terrorism and would live in peace with Israel if they were just given a state of their own, they keep demonstrating, through their words and deeds, exactly the opposite.

Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney in New Jersey, is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.