GraphicZionism: Into Deep Water

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By the way, the movie does show that the waters not only fell from above but also arose from the earth which, as some of us know, is according to the Midrashic interpretation:

Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 107b-108b -

Raba taught: What is meant by the verse, He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a stone despised in the thought of him that is at ease?  — This teaches that when Noah rebuked them and spoke words to them that were as hard as fiery flints, they derided him. Said they to him, `Old man, what is this ark for?` — He replied, `The Holy One, blessed be He, will bring a flood upon you.` `A flood of what,` they jeered?... if He brings it up from the earth, we have iron plates with which we can cover the earth [to prevent the water from coming up];...

Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer 23   -

Rabbi Zadok said: On the l0th of Marheshvan all the creatures entered the ark; on the 17th of the same (month) the waters of the Flood descended from heaven upon the earth, for they were the waters (endowed with the) male (principle). And there came up the waters of the depths, for they arc the waters (endowed) with the female (prin­ciple), and they were joined with one another, and they prevailed so as to destroy the world, as it is said, And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth (ibid. 7:19).

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Their Goal: The Undoing of Zionism

In a review article of a book of collected essays on leftist anti-Zionism, Rebels against Zion edited by August Grabski, David Hirsh of Goldsmiths, University of London, makes some reflective points worth repeating:

...all the strategies adopted against antisemitism failed...But Israel became a reality, a nation state, not because Zionism ‘won’ the debates outlined in this book, but because the material basis of Jewish life in Europe was utterly transformed by the ‘Final Solution’ and by Israel’s victory in the war of 1948 against the Palestinians and against the Arab Nationalist states which tried to eradicate it at birth...

I think Hirsh is contradicting himself there but the point needs be repeated: Zionism was victorious. It won out not only against its external enemies, the enemies of Jewish peoplehood as an idea and against Jews as persons, but it bested the competing ideologies from within the Jewish people who sought out other 'escapes' from their Jewishness.

And with Isaac Deutscher admitting in 1954 that

...he had ‘of course’ abandoned his life-long anti-Zionism...the key questions changed. It was no longer relevant to ask whether Zionism was a winning strategy against antisemitism; the question was how would the Jewish state reach a peace with its neighbours and how it would negotiate the contradiction between its Jewishness and its democracy?

a new characterization of antagonism to and opposition of Zionism was established which was: it does not matter what the non-Jewish reality is, the Jews must somehow be different and quite unrealistic.  Their morality must always be 10 degrees higher, their willingness to submit greater, their necessity for accommodating much more.  All of this, of course, will lead Jews and the Jewish state, as it did since then, into more difficult situations where survival is at stake rather than just a set of values and ethics that the Left promotes.

Back in 1917, Lord Montague opposed the Balfour Declaration.  Then Jacob De Hass opposed Zionism.  The ACJ's Elmer Berger opposed Zionism.  Stephen Wise weakened Zionism and Jewry during the Holocaust years.  Judah Leib Magnes weakened Zionism all throughout the Mandate years and almost succeeded in having the Jewish state left totally defenseless in his May 1948 meetings with George Marshall and Harry Truman. They failed but nevertheless, reduced Zionism's comprehensiveness.  There always has to be a Jew to distance himself from Judaism as a religion, as a culture, as a nationalism, as a model for ethical existence within the real world, not the fictitious or purposely blown out of proportion criticism they create.

One of the first books I purchased on the subject of dissent from Zionism was "Zionism Reconsidered: The Rejection of Jewish Normalcy", edited by Michael Selzer, in 1970.  All the "greats" were represented.  Selzer had already published "The Aryanization of the Jewish State", a really evil work that Shlomo Avineri describes so:

An impressive mass of data and facts has been assembled; historical perspectives have been traced; all the right quotations have been adduced; a good deal of the argument even manages to make sense; yet the outcome corresponds to a reality that exists solely in the mind of the author.
...During his student days Selzer was president of the Zionist Society at Oxford University; now he works for the violently anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism. Not unexpectedly, his book has the unmistakable air of having been written by a disillusioned renegade, turning now with venom against the ideals he once so dearly—and naively—cherished. It seems safe to assume that Selzer’s erstwhile Zionism was as uncritical as his present virulent rejection of it.

And there's this:

Selzer argues that Zionism rejected entirely the uniqueness of Judaism and its mission in the world: “The most startling innovation of this new Zionist doctrine lay precisely in the fact that it rejected belief in the unique constitution of the Jewish people...the Zionists would attempt to mold their new society in a manner which would invalidate the accusations of their oppressors … for nothing would more definitely ensure the approval of anti-Semitism for ‘the new Jewish society’ than its success in recreating the Jew in the image of his oppressor … what we might call the ‘Aryanization’ of the Jews.”  

Does all that not sound very familiar to us today?

The detractors of today, just as the forefathers, have not halted Zionism but seek constantly to derail it, to roll back its vindication in the face of irrational anti-Semitism, implaccable hatred and, seemingly, a psychological need to blame Zionsim - and the Jews - for all they see as interfering with their lives, their personal advancement or the promotion of ideologies and policies that may parallel Jewish civilization but are not fully Jewish.

And over the past four decades, following the glorious victory in 1967, those of the Left, radical, progressive and universalist, who follow in their footsteps, employ every method used and new ones to oppose Zionism.  Their goal, I suggest is the undoing of Zionism whether out of jealousy or a need to stand apart.

As Hirsh in the review I quote from at the beginning puts it:

Jewish anti-Zionism which, through a relentless succession of slippages, omissions and unacknowledged assumptions, will make the lasting impression...If ‘the Zionists’ are characterised as essentially ‘racist’ or ‘apartheid’ or ‘Nazi’, then Israeli Jews can be treated, once again, as exceptional to the human community...Jewish anti-Zionists also tend to have a particular Jewish focus on Israel. They often feel particularly concerned by Israeli human rights abuses, by the injustice of the Israeli occupation and by what they feel is the unthinking support offered by Jewish communal bodies around the world to Israeli governments.

As noted elsewhere in discussing the "Rebels Against Zion" book,

[a] most striking post-Holocaust expression of anti-Semitism is the adoption of an “anti-Zionist” standpoint, which is then combined with many of the traditional themes of anti-Semitism (in particular, the notion of behind-the-scenes Jewish rule, which today finds expression in the theme of the power of the Jewish lobby in the USA). 

And he provides for us an analysis of Canadian researcher Todd M. Endelman who lists the circumstances when anti-Zionist criticism slides too easily into expressions of anti-Semitism:

1. When it questions the legitimacy of the Jewish state, but no other state, and the legitimacy of Jewish nationalism, but no other nationalism, either in the Middle East or elsewhere.
2. When it denies to the Jewish state, but no other state, the right to express the character of the majority of its citizens (that is, to be as Jewish as France is French).
3. When it demonizes the Jewish state, turning the Arab-Israeli conflict into a morality play, a problem that Jews, and Jews alone, created and for which Jews, and Jews alone, are responsible.
4. When it expresses an obsessive, exclusive, and disproportionate concern with the shortcomings of the Israelis and the sufferings of the Palestinians – to the point that a conflict between two small peoples is transformed into a cosmic, Manichean struggle between the forces of Good and Evil.

His conclusion:

When criticism of Israel crosses any of these lines and becomes an obsessive narrative of fantasies and fears – that is when we are dealing solely with anti-Semitic notions.

Some post-Zionists, such as the peace activist Uri Avnery, Gideon Levy and Amira Haas, Norman Finkelstein and Ilan Pappé, Abraham Burg, are utopians in their world-view.  They ignore everything and concentrate on Israel and in doing so, they pervert not on what is real but the values to would have us believe they foster.

The Left always seeks to fix the parameters of discussion on "values" which become solely theirs. Rightists cannot be democrats is a mantra they push.  They have no appreciation for human rights. They wish, ipso facto, to harm civil liberties goes the claim.  But what the enemies of the Jews do has nothing to do with this at all for them.  That they downplay becuase what they are concerned with is not the totality but what Jews do (or supposedly do) and what the state of Israel does (or supposedly does).  The Left, not only are they hypocrites, but they are the ultimate double-standard crowd, allowing Israel and the Jews to be opened for attacks, verbal and physical.

And having lost the ideological battle with Israel proving them wrong and more importangtly, Israel's and Jewry's enemies and haters proving the Leftists wrong in their optimism, good will wishing and hopes, they do not accept defeat but seek to undo Zionism's victory.

They are rebels against themselves.

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From the Sea to the River

Gaza premier Ismail Haneyya has asserted that the strategy of resistance against Israeli occupation would never be forsaken until end of occupation of the Palestinian lands...Haneyya stressed that no negotiations, agreements, or bargaining would make our people forsake their right to historical Palestine from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.

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Judea for the ... Jews

with thanks to DF

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An Opening Statement in Debate

Pressured by an upcoming debate you are to have with an Arab or worse, a Jewish anti-Zionist?

Try this as an opening statement:

"The modern Arab-Israel, or Zionist-Palestinian or Jewish-Islamist conflict, began when Arabs swept out of the Saudi Arabian Peninsula as emissaries of a new religion and in 638 CE or so, conquered Jerusalem, occupied the country and within a short time, despite relative religious tolerance, effectively destroyed Jewish social and economic life in the country and, in turning them into dhimmis, pursued a political policy of dominance, oppression and disempowerment.  In the years leading up to, but not including the 1948 war, Jewish residing in communities in Gaza, Nablus, Hebron and other locations in Judea, Samaria and Gaza where Jews were for centuries, were, during the Mandate period, ethnically cleansed of Jews and this exercise was then carried out during the 1948 war.  Jews became refugees as a result of Arab terror and aggression not only in the Land of Israel but throughout Arabs lands across the Middle East, hundreds and hundreds of miles away."

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From the Peace Index Opinion Poll

Here:

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Diab Playing Dumb?

Haaretz has found a Jerusalem-based Egyptian-Belgian journalist and a blogger, Khaled Diab, to be a contributer to their paper's website.

Credit

In a previous article, he seeks to justify, I think, conquest and foreign occupation.  No, not by Israel but of Islam, writing of Spain:

during its seven centuries of presence in the Iberian peninsula, Islam became an indigenous faith, 

Hebron's David Wilder appreciates him, though.

Diab does not have a very positive opinion of the wild BSDers but writes:

a campaign could be launched to force SodaStream to relocate its facilities to areas of the West Bank under the control of the Palestinian Authority.

A while ago, relating to the so-called "right-of-return", he noted the

fixation on return focuses aspirations on a remote, distant and perhaps unattainable goal, while drawing attention and energy away from the very real issues

and moderately assumed that the Naba, the dispossession, should be kept "alive", nevertheless,

...this is likely to become more spiritual and symbolic with the passing of each generation

Today, his op-ed is entitled:

Delaying the apocalypse at Al-Aqsa/Temple Mount

His theme:

Jerusalem's holiest site - once again triggering crises between Muslims and Jews and between regional states - cannot remain hostage to extremists.

He sticks to the Arab propaganda narrative writing

a provocative visit by Ariel Sharon to the site caused simmering tension to overflow into the costly second intifada.

And he cannot liberate his writing from prejudices as here:

...a group of Jewish extremists – led by the messianic rabbi, Yehuda Glick, who is part of the tiny fringe movement which fantasizes about building the Third Temple - stormed the complex...lunatic fringe

Khaled, they visited and toured.  Who is the extremist here?

He does find merit, though:

...for all Israel’s many failings, it is possibly, at least for now, the only conqueror of Jerusalem not to have 'converted' the religious identity of the site, despite the best efforts of extremists.

Laughably, and ironically, he quotes Hanan ("Jesus was a 'Palestinian'") Ashrawi, as saying,

“Using religion as a pretext to impose sovereignty on historical places of worship threatens to plunge the entire region into great conflict and instability,” 

Just a moment, is Sheikh Raed ("Four Fingers for Allah") Salah not using religion?  Was Arafat not using religion?  Nor Mufti Sheikh Muhammad Hussein or his predecessor, Sheikh Akram Sabri? How much of history and politics can Diab alter, twist and misrepresent?


Fairly, he does note that

Omar Ibn al-Khattab, Muhammad’s second successor, or caliph, allowed Jews, who had been expelled by the Christian Byzantines, back into Jerusalem.
“There is strong evidence to suggest that the Jews were not only permitted to return to Jerusalem, but that the Muslims allowed them to worship at their side on the Temple Mount,” wrote Francis E Peters, a professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University.
...Omar ordered the cleaning of the Temple Mount, which had been used as a rubbish tip by the Byzantines, and permitted Jews to worship there. One convert, Rabbi Kaab al-Ahbar, even located the foundation stone for the Muslim conquerors.
It is even possible that the caliph allowed the Jews to construct a synagogue on the mount and appointed a Jew as the first governor of Jerusalem, according to the 7th century Armenian historian Sebeos.

With all this "permissiveness and interfaith interaction", Diab asks

Is it possible today, in the supposedly more enlightened 21st century, for the Noble Sanctuary/Temple Mount to become a common ground, rather than a battleground, for Muslims and Jews?

but his personal response is skepticism for there is an

...illusion, or misconception, that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a religious one.

Go tell that to the Mufti.

Why cannot there be sharing of time and space?

He warns

it would be a grave, reckless and dangerous error for Israel to think it can unilaterally take action.

and that is after he admits the Muslims unilaterally acted in conquering the city, taking over Mount Moriah, building there a mosque (and twenty years ago adding two more), denying Jews entrance after the fall of the Crusader Kingdom and killing Jews who mistakenly entered (Itzkowitz, April 1947, for example) and who continue to erase all traces of historic Jewish identity in stone, in the ground and above, permit no archaeological digs and corrupt the Jewish narrative, even denying the Temple's existence (  هيكلهم المزعوم  ---  the "alleged Temple") and so much more negativity.  

We can't do what Muslims do, despite the law and despite the previous 'good' history Diab quotes.

He trots out that the

Jews and Muslims were, for many centuries, friends and allies and that they once stood side by side as brothers in faith on Jerusalem’s most hallowed ground.

But, today, no coexistence, no sharing of God, of his holy sites.  No "brothers in faith".  No respect or common decency.  Jews are yelled at.  Muslim men and women are paid to sit in their pathway, to shout and threaten and to attempt to cause violent provocations.  They claim Jews chemically poison trees, dig tunnels where there are none, desecrate and engage in "incursions" and "stormings".  The Islamists extend Al-Aqsa outside its walled precincts, foment hostility with anti-Semitic caricatures and they aren't "extremists" or "fanatics"?  A proper new entrance to replace the collapsed Mughrabi Gate entrance is forbidden as altering the status quo.

Diab 

Credit

is playing dumb?


God forbid.

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Shiloh in the Distance

Via KB looking at from Eli:-

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Responsum to Beinart on Sacrifices

Petar Beinart, at his Facebook page, asked

anyone know a pithy, ethically sensitive, way to explain animal sacrifice to a kindergartener?

I replied, offering (sorry about the pun) this formulation:

Son, you know how I get all dressed up in a chef's hat and borrow Mommy's large kitchen apron and I take out the special implements to barbecue that delicious meat we eat on summer Sundays?  Well, our forefathers, when the Temple existed, did it in a much more spiritual manner not to satiate our hunger and appetites or to show off to our neighbors, like I do, to let thwem know how great I am at cooking and roasting or how great a coal fire I can light, but to give thanks to God for what He has bestowed upon us through our labors in the fields and meadows, to show that all we are is because of Him.  It is not a matter of ourselves but who we are because of the values we serve.  It's not about the good food (and most of those sacrifices we didn't even eat, except special ones) but our good fortune. The sacrifices are a symbol, much more that lamb chops and steaks and hamburgers and franks.  Son, we're Jews and we're different.

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Marty Peretz's Response to NYTimes Criticism

...The American people’s support for the Jewish state has never been stronger. For Israel’s enemies, and in Mr. Judis’s book, “Genesis: Truman, American Jews and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict,” this can only be explained as a subterfuge, a big lobby’s lie. In fact, an ancestral homeland for the Jewish people has been sympathetically regarded, first as a possibility and later as a reality, by many generations of Americans.
Why is a liberal magazine like The New Republic not to be permitted to consistently make the case that the notion of Israeli statehood needs to be supported, especially in view of the current violence among Israel’s neighbors?
MARTIN PERETZ
New York, March 3, 2014

The writer is working on a book titled “The Book of Grudges and Other Loves: Defending Zion.”

Source

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More Arab Filth

Yesterday, I brought some recent examples of anti-Semitic themes contained in the Al-Quds UK 'Palestinian' newspaper's caricaturist section.

Crooked noses, ugly and filthy-looking, insect representations, Star of David, Hasidic portrayals, money, etc.

All the filth.

Let's provide you with more.

From Al-Hayat:

From Manar:

Again from Manar:

From Al-Ayyam:

another from Al-Ayyam:

If they are against a Jewish state, why all this "Jewishness"?

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The Umm el-Jimal Tale

Read this and think to yourselves, what is Medad thinking:

the village of Umm el-Jimal was first established by Nabataean settlers in the first century AD...In Roman times, the settlement*...As the succeeding Byzantine era progressed, the village's economy came to revolve around farming and trade; 15 churches were constructed in the fifth and sixth centuries, testament to the area's growing prosperity.

After the Muslim conquest, however, Umm el-Jimal's fortunes faded. It was gradually abandoned during the ninth century, and for much of the second millennium was only sporadically inhabited. In the mid 20th century, the Msa'eid tribe settled among the archaeological remains and built the village that surrounds them...In 2001, Umm el-Jimal was added to the World Heritage Site programme's tentative list; a final application to Unesco is currently underway.

And the answers are:

a)  where are Saeb Erekat's Natufians?

b)  the Muslims conquered?

c)  where was the robust, thriving indigenous Arab population between the 9th and 20th centuries?

d)  where are the ancient Jordanians?

e)  a "settlement"?

f)  why a Heritage site?

Did you guess correctly?

Any other reasons?

____________

*  Let's be exact:

During the 4th century AD, in response to the rebellion of Queen Zenobia of Palmyra, Roman armies allied with the Arab Tanoukhid Federation restored order in a destructive military campaign. At Umm el-Jimal the civilian settlement was replaced by a military garrison stationed in a purpose built fort, the early castellum

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Cats Go Where Jews Cannot Tread

At Al-Aqsa.

Source

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Forthright and Clear US Mideast Policy

A.  Obama:

As we speak, American diplomacy is supporting Israelis and Palestinians as they engage in difficult but necessary talks to end the conflict there; to achieve dignity and an independent state for Palestinians, and lasting peace and security for the State of Israel – a Jewish state that knows America will always be at their side.

More

Obama in 2011 sketched the ultimate diplomatic goal as "two states for two people: Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people and the State of Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people."Then, in his Jerusalem speech last week, Obama suddenly and unexpectedly adopted in full the Israeli demand: "Palestinians must recognize that Israel will be a Jewish state."

B.   Psaki:

The United States believes there is no need for the Palestinian Authority (PA) to recognize Israel as a Jewish state as part of a peace agreement, State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Saturday.

Psaki, who spoke to the PA-based Arabic-language Al-Quds newspaper, said, “The American position is clear, Israel is a Jewish state. However, we do not see a need that both sides recognize this position as part of the final agreement.”

_________________________________

UPDATE

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki on Monday said a Palestinian publication recently “distorted” a statement she made last week about Israel’s demand to be recognized as a Jewish state...Psaki dismissed the claims via Twitter, writing, that the publication “distorted/fabricated my quote,” and that  she “did not do an interview with Al Quds.”  She added, “US position (as I stated) Israel is a Jewish state. But we are not in the business of negotiating from the podium…”

According to an official state department transcript of Psaki’s [March 7] briefing, what she really said was the following:

“If you look at the issue of a Jewish state and whether Israel will be called a Jewish state, that’s been our position, as you know, for a long time, but that doesn’t reflect what the parties will agree to, which I know you know, and of course there are many issues like that that are being discussed as part of the framework.”

_________________________________

C.  Arab ministers

Cairo, Mar 9 (Petra) – Arab foreign ministers’ meeting in Cairo on Sunday pledged not to recognise Israel as a Jewish state and reiterated full support to the Palestinian Authority's efforts to end the Israeli occupation.  A statement issued by the Arab League Council said there will be no peace without the establishment of an independent state of Palestine as per June 4, 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.  It called for Israel's withdrawal from all Palestinian and Arab territories occupied in 1967...

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On That "Jewish State" Demand

One of [Tzipi] Livni’s catchphrases is, “There is a process of delegitimization of Israel as a Jewish state.” She sees herself in a race against time.

...“Stagnation works against those who believe in a two-state solution,” Livni said in our first conversation. The West, she suggested, needs to tell Hamas, the Islamist movement battling Fatah for control of a Palestinian movement now split between Gaza and the West Bank, that it must not only recognize Israel’s right to exist but also “the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state, which is not that obvious anymore.”

July 8, 2007

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Elisheva Goldberg's (Woe Is) Jerusalem

In the latest issue of Sh'ma, there's a contribution of astute thought by a former Beinart bunny (is that misogynist? anti-feminist? or simply satire?) and current Burg babe (oops, did I do it again?).

A section:

She does quote the Gemara but typically castrates the section:

The concluding sentences there in Tractate Ta'anit are:

Is there then a heavenly Jerusalem? - Yes; for it is written, Jerusalem thou art builded as a city that is compact together

"Builded".  And we all know, or should know, what "Jerusalem rebuilt" means in traditional Jewish sources.  Even Sinem knows.

The Temple.

Isaiah 2:2 -

And it shall come to pass in the end of days, that the mountain of the LORD'S house shall be established as the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.

The city below becomes united with the celestial city in terms of holiness and completeness when the Temple is extant.  That reality, for sure, would be anathema to Ms. Goldberg.  She wants to "end the occupation", a situation in which Mulsims claim the Temple never exited, that the Temple Mount surely does not have any Jewish connection and that the Western Wall had nothing to do as a retaining wall of the Temple platform but was where Muhammed tethered his mythical winged horse.

It's not the "Temple Mount" but Al-Aqsa, Haram E-Sharif.  Is this here "reality"?  Her "earthly Jerusalem"?

At the end of the Pesah seder, we read in the Haggada:

Nirtzah

Afterwards say:

NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM!

But Ms. Elisheva hates the "occupation" (what happens to united Jerusalem, the earthly Jerusalem when that status is eliminated?) and writes of "participants" of a "project" that "essentially steals property", people who "deny civil liberties".  She is good at the blame game, especially when Jews are, somehow, involved -- or rather not but that doesn't upset her.

To whom did the original Jerusalem belong?  Of which people was it a capital, a religious center? Whose people fought invading Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs?  Which fighters for liberation made the Temple Mount precincts their last stand for freedom of worship and national independence?

Ms. Goldberg either doesn't know, forgot, couldn't care or, for sure, doesn't want you to know.

Who killed Jews because of their desire to live and pray in Jerusalem even when the "occupation" did not exist, in the years prior to 1967?

Such a sick ideology.


By the way, at the beginning she quotes Yehuda Amichai:

As opposed to that poem, there is Uri Tzvi Greenberg, who wrote

And I say: There is one truth and not two.

As there is one sun and as there are not two Jerusalems.

The whole poem:

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Bibi, No Hard Feelings Right?

Reported:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged that some West Bank settlements would not come under Israeli sovereignty should there be a final peace deal with the Palestinians.

“Of course some of the settlements won’t be part of the deal, everyone understands that,” he said when he sat down for his first interviews with the Israeli media in over a year.

“I will make sure that [number] is as limited as possible, if we get there,” the prime minister added to Udi Segal of Israel’s Channel 2 News.

You won't mind, of course, that some of us make sure that your ability to make such decisions will be limited as much as possible?

You understand that, yes?

Even before you get there.

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Arabs Aren't Anti-Semitic; Just The Cartoonists Are

From AlQuds UK

More found there:

and more

and more

Arabs anti-Semitic?

________________

UPDATE


Try this website blog.

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Eliminate the Hope of Two States for the 'Palestinian People'

From Dror Ben-Yemini:

Destroy the hopes of the Palestinian right of return, before any compromise

Now it seems to me that not only is [Netanyahu's insistence on PA recognition of Israel as the 'Jewish state' a] demand that is not unnecessary, but it's actually the essence of the negotiations. This is not some quirk or a Bibi trick, but this substance. Recognition of the Jewishness of the state defines consciousness in all essential areas - the existence, borders.

The more they oppose recognition, so it seems more necessary...the refusal to recognize a Jewish state is not just a semantic issue, its meaning is that Israel exists for them on probation.

Once the majority is an Arab - Palestinian, it will not be the state of Israel. That is, the Arab position is not an ethnic, not just religious - it is simply a strategy, how to delete a state without a shot, using patience and tolerance.

Palestinians know and believe that only give them time and they will become the majority. Not just by birth, but also through the return of refugees...the Palestinian equation is: non-recognition of Jewish state = return of refugees .

...As long as the Palestinians continue to dream of the return of refugees to "their country", there can be peace...the existence of this hope is basically declaring war on us...Therefore, this hope should be eliminated before giving up land or anything else. We need to know the dream of return is no longer available. Only then can we be "two states for two peoples", and not "two countries for the Palestinian people.

P.S.

That actually would be three states - Jordan is Palestinian, too.

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Begin Book Review Comment

I left this comment at the book review of Hillel Halkin on Daniel Gordis' new Begin biography:

This assertion regarding Begin--- "a quasi-religious devotion to the land of Israel (which, ironically, enabled him psychologically to surrender all of Sinai, a territory that was not, for Judaism, sacred)" --- is, I suggest, not exact. Begin indeed argued with Rabbi Shlomo Goren on whether Sinai was within the traditional boundaries of Eretz-Yisrael but the definition of the patrimony for him was the League of Nations Mandate decision that, while on the one hand, excluded Sinai (to the frustration Labor members of the Greater Land of Israel movement, for example, had for Begin) but included TransJordan (would he have concluded the 1994 peace treaty?).

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Rabbi Aviner's Anti-Christian Crusade

Source

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Promoting a Kurtzer Peace

In a "TAKING NOTE" column from March 7, What an Israeli-Palestinian Peace Framework Might Look Like, Carol Giacomo (who seems to specialize in Middle East matters, a former diplomatic correspondent for Reuters, she's now also Ferris professor of journalism at Princeton University - which means she teaches one of their seminars in journalism on editorials: how they are conceived and constructed and how they aim to shape national debate on important issues, and whose official title is "foreign affairs and defense policy editor"),

promotes Daniel Kurtzer's "6-page model framework" for peace (no, not these six points).  Kurzter, to point out a possible conflict of interest, is Lecturer and S. Daniel Abraham Professor in Middle Eastern Policy Studies Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at ... Princeton.

Kurtzer, we should recall, was angry about "a very bad idea" that "the United States [was] poised to reward Israel for its bad behavior" back in 2010, a "deal [that] will shake the foundation of the U.S.-Israeli strategic partnership".  that was the construction moratorium. Truly an objective commentator on the issue.

She really appreciates his "way to settle [sic] the dispute over Mr. Netanyahu’s demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel not just as a state but as a Jewish state" with this formula:

“Israel will recognize Palestine as the home of the Palestinian people and all its citizens and Palestine will recognize Israel as the national home of the Jewish people and all its citizens.”

More, 

Palestinian refugees should have the right of return to the state of Palestine while Israel should “offer a program of family reunification, including citizenship, for a limited number of refugees.” 

and, as for the issue of the city of Jerusalem, 

Kurtzer proposes that it become “the capital of the two states...undivided...”...[and] envisions an international administrator appointed by the two parties.

Giacomo finishes up writing

Israeli and Palestinian leaders have usually not encouraged an open dialogue on the specifics. Rather, they have spent their time talking to their own communities, reinforcing maximalist demands and the perfidies of the other, not advocating areas of compromise.

I left this comment (with additions):

"Maximalist demands"? First of all, permitting an unchecked 'return' of refugees into Judea & Samaria will only exacerbate the security danger facing Israel if the retention of the hills of that region is not a part of a peace arrangement.   Second, any so-called internationalization of Jerusalem ("a special regime to administer the Old City under an international administrator appointed by them"), even if limited to the "holy sites" will not procure for Jews adequate freedom of religion (despite his belief that "The parties will agree to act in accordance with the dignity and sanctity of the city.") because the rocks will come down on worshippers at the Western Wall if Israeli police are not stationed on the Temple Mount, not to mention the demand that Jews be allowed to respect in a spiritual fashion the Temple Mount.

Those are actually "minimal" requirements. But Kurtzer's suggestion - and he is a former ambassador in Israel and should know better - that the Pals. must refrain from threats is laughable given the conflict's history. If, until now, they cannot even recognize Jewish national ethos, can we trust any such pledge?

I wonder if Ms. Giacomo would permit an opposing view to grace the Opinion pages of her newspaper?

Or would she provide a curt negative?

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UPDATE

My comment is up.

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Abbas on Jewish Communities, Jewish State and Jerusalem

Here are the words of the PA's Mahmoud Abbas:


فقلنا لهم إن وجهة نظرنا وقرارنا وموقفنا هي أن الاستيطان كله من بدايته لنهايته غير شرعي، وبالتالي تتحدثون عن كتل هنا أو مستوطنات هناك، ونحن نقول إن كل بيت وكل حجر وضع في الضفة بعد 1967 هو غير شرعي ولا نعترف به.


In translation:

We told them that our point of view and our decision and our position is that the entire settlement project from beginning to end is illegal, and therefore talking about blocks here or settlements there, and we say that every house and every stone placed in the West Bank after 1967 is illegal and  we do not acknowledge it.

and

 نحن مواقفنا كما يلي: عندما نتحدث عن عاصمة فلسطين فإننا لا نتحدث عن أبو ديس، ولا نتكلم عن بيت حنينا ولا نتكلم عن أي من القرى المحيطة بالقدس، بل نتكلم عن القدس الشرقية عاصمة دولة فلسطين، لأننا سمعنا كلاما منمقا يقول إن عاصمتكم في القدس، يعني في أبو ديس أو بيت حنينا، بل عاصمتنا القدس الشرقية التي احتلت عام 1967

Our positions are as follows: When we talk about the capital of Palestine, we are not talking about Abu Dis, and do not talk about the Beit Hanina nor about any of the villages surrounding Jerusalem, but we talk about East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine...which was occupied in 1967...

and

هذه القضايا الثلاث التي وضعناها على الطاولة وقلنا هذه مواقفنا، ماذا نريد القانون الدولي، الدولة اليهودية، لن نقبل الاعتراف بالدولة اليهودية، 

These three issues which we put on the table and we said this is our position, what we want international law, the Jewish state, will not accept the recognition of the Jewish state,

That's clear, nop?


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The Demonology of Demography

As reported:-

Israel's settler The population figures of Israelis in the occupied West Bank Land of Israel regions of Judea and Samaria increased by 4.2 percent in 2013, interior ministry figures show, as US-backed peace talks with the Palestinians falter over the settlement issue.

The number of settlers Israeli living in the West Bank rose to 375,000 in January 2014 from 360,000 at the same time the year before, according to statistics AFP obtained on Thursday from the ministry.

The figure excluded the nearly 200,000 settlers Israelis living in annexed Arab east the new post-1967 neighnorhoods in Jerusalem.

Well, as reported and redacted by me.

Have you seen the demography demon/threat lately?  The one Obama pushes, Kerry pushes, the NYTimes pushes, J Street pushes?  That Ian Lustick pushes?

They're such push-overs for false information that portrays Israel negatively.

Don't be influenced by them.

Oh, and that "nearly 200,000"?  It should be "just over 200,000".

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Creeping Annexation

I was at Menachem Begin's grave this afternoon for the yahrtzeit memorial ceremony with son Benny and family and admirers including Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, aspiring future President MK Ruby Rivlin, Professor Aryeh Naor and fellow employees of the Menachem Begin Heritage Center.

Prior to the ceremony, looking out at the Temple Mount,

I spotted something I had not seen previously:

a new cemetery section, on the opposite, to the west, slope of the Mount of Olives.

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Me and a NYTimes Editorial

The New York Times and yet another editorial on Israel.  Doesn't Tom, Friedman and Co. ever give up?

Israel’s Choice

Excerpts:

In Washington this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel sounded two different notes about peace negotiations...he enthusiastically advocated a peace agreement as a means to improve Israel’s ties with its Arab neighbors...But at other moments, a more familiar skepticism was apparent. He demanded that Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state with “no excuses, no delays.”...

...In remarkably blunt comments, Mr. Obama said that he had not heard a persuasive case for how Israel survives both as a democracy and a Jewish state absent a negotiated two-state solution...

...In his Aipac speech, Mr. Netanyahu declared, “I’m prepared to make a historic peace with our Palestinian neighbors.” But, really, what other just and durable choice does he have? What is his long-term answer for Israel, if not a two-state solution?

My off-the-cuff comment:

Why jump to a state?  Even the Zionists had to suffer 30 years of Mandate regime.
Let's try autonomy.
Then we do a Jordanian confederation.
Then a joint Israel-Jordan condominium.
Then, well, then maybe a Pal. state but probably the one-state solution.  So why draw this all out?

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Eleven Years Ago

PM Sharon tells Haaretz that Israel would have to remove some settlements to get peace with Palestinians...

Sharon, long a right-wing champion of Jewish settlement on land occupied by Israel in the 1967 war, says he is ready to take steps "that are painful for every Jew and for me personally". He says: 


"Our whole history is bound up with these places: Bethlehem, Shiloh, Beit El. I know that we will have to part with some of these places. There will be a parting from places that are connected to the whole course of our history... As a Jew, this agonises me. But I have decided to make every effort to reach a [peace] settlement".


Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin said the prime minister was not singling out specific settlements in his remarks to Haaretz. 

April 13, 2003

And, in the meantime...


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