And Was Israel "Dragged"?

A thought came to me after reading the letter below from the New York Review of Books, a bastion of anti-Zionism and extreme Israel-bashing which is - will a letter be published in the near future recanting the "dragging of Israel through the mud of calumny and antisemitic falsehoods"?

Here:

To the Editors:

Concerning my review of several books on Alexander the Great [NYR, October 27], a letter to the editors is correct to say that Homer does not explicitly say that Achilles dragged Hector’s body “around” the walls of Troy. Mea culpa; and I am grateful to the writer for pointing this out.

The writer is also right to say that many readers of Homer have taken the text as I did—largely, I think, because of the lamentations uttered by the Trojans when they see this scene of cruelty, looking down from the city walls (Andromache watches the body being dragged “before the city” and “to the ships of the Greeks,” Iliad 22, 464–465).

That is certainly how Virgil understood it; and there has never been a more acute reader of Homer than Virgil.

Mary Beard
Professor of Classics University of Cambridge
Cambridge, England

All either an optical illusion or isuse of vocabulary.

^

Zooarchaeology and the Biblical Narrative

The "Palestinian narrative" is in trouble, yet again:

There'll be a lecture on Tel Dan soon -

Blood on the Altar: Architectural, Artifactual and Zooarchaeological Evidence for (Israelite?) Animal Sacrifice at Tel Dan by Jonathan S. Greer (The Altamont School, Birmingham, Alabama).

on Tuesday, December 6, 2011 7:30pm at the Michael C. Carlos Museum, Reception Hall of Emory University, Atlanta, GA.

Seems, as distributed that:

An analysis of architectural features, certain artifacts, and an exceptionally large concentration of animal bone remains uncovered over the last few decades from the so-called “sacred precinct” at Tel Dan, in northern Israel, will be presented suggesting that animal sacrifice and sacred meals were carried out at this installation during the days of the Israelite kings (late 10th cent. - mid 8th cent. BCE). The site is associated with one of the infamous golden calves of Jeroboam I after the death of Solomon in biblical tradition and this synthesis, thus, has implications for the history of ancient Israel and for the formation of priestly literature concerning sacrificial rites.

Seen any Arabs?

^

Peace Now Takes the Criminalize Route

As I noted previously, construction at Shiloh, the object of a Peace Now High Court appeal which failed, is a simple matter of administration and bureaucracy, of parcelization and zoning (see what is on the books in the UK).  The ownership, as if it is "stolen privately-owned land", is not the issue but if land originally set aside for agriculture can be used for building homes.

Trust me, living here, no real agriculture can be developed there where the building is.  The original designation was simple an off-hand decision at the time.

There is nothing criminal in the procedure but our Peace Now Zionists won't give up.

Read on from a JPost report: Shiloh construction may bring criminal probe

The State Attorney’s office is weighing the possibility of ordering a criminal investigation into illegal construction [it isn't illegal] in the West Bank settlement of Shiloh, even as the Defense Ministry has said it plans to legalize the building.

...The panel of three justices – Miriam Naor, Esther Hayut and Neal Handel – heard a petition filed by Peace Now over alleged illegal construction of residential housing units in Shiloh, northeast of Ramallah.  Peace Now claims the construction, on three areas of designated state land, is unlawful because the Binyamin Regional Council has not received appropriate planning permits from the Defense Ministry.

Monday’s hearing came after the state informed the High Court on Sunday that the Defense Ministry has decided to retroactively approve building plans in Shiloh, a move that will legalize 119 residential units in the settlement. [a move that happens all the time all over Israel as well as in kibbutzim]

...Peace Now had asked the court to order the Defense Ministry to explain why it had not taken all necessary actions to prevent the houses’ construction and to investigate and to prosecute those members of the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council responsible for the building.

...The petition relates to three different areas in Shiloh, one of which was officially zoned as agricultural lands, and which cannot be used for residential building. [well, if you change that status, the land can be used.  is Peace Now asserting that the government can't change its mind?]

In order to legalize building on that land, the state must now undertake a public process, during which members of the public will be allowed 60 days to voice any opposition to the zoning changes.  The other two areas are already zoned as residential, but Peace Now argues that the houses built on that land were constructed without a proper permit. [Peace Now turns here, turns there and wants us to get dizzy]

...Peace Now had contacted the Judea and Samaria regional police and the deputy attorney-general asking for a criminal investigation into alleged illegal construction by the Binyamin Regional Council.  However, the state said in its written response that such an investigation was “not a simple matter.”

In Monday’s High Court hearing, attorney Michal Friedlander, for the state, said that that a decision has not yet been made regarding the criminal investigation...Friedlander said that a decision would be made on the matter within several weeks.

...After the hearing, attorney Akiva Sylzetsky, for the Binyamin Regional Council, told The Jerusalem Post he was optimistic the court would decide not to intervene in the matter of the housing construction.  Regarding the police investigation, Sylzetsky said it would be “difficult to start an investigation in a place where the process of legalization has already started,” and that any investigation would not necessarily result in indictments being filed.

According to Sylzetsky, the state’s move to legalize housing construction in Shiloh is part of a trend that has developed over the past year and-a-half in reaction to petitions like this one, filed against building on state (public) lands in the West Bank.  The petitions have given the state the impetus to legalize settlement construction on state lands, which lacks the necessary permits. The land is considered public and there are no Palestinian private land claims against it, Sylzetsky says, because the High Court has forced the state to give an answer about the land.

“Peace Now’s petitions have been having the opposite affect to that intended,” he added. “In several places, the state has legalized construction because of petitions, whereas if the settlers themselves had asked for legalization it would never have happened.”...The state can legalize the houses because they are built not on private Palestinian land but on so-called “state lands,” land considered public property under Ottoman law. [not only that, sir, but the League of Nagtions Mandate decision specifically charged that state and waste lands were to be used for "close Jewish settlment", Article 6]

According to that law, which was in force when Israel took the area from Jordan in 1967, land in the West Bank is considered state land unless an individual has occupied, cultivated and paid taxes on it for at least 10 years.

Meanwhile, also on Monday, the High Court of Justice decided to postpone a hearing of a petition by civil rights watchdog Yesh Din into alleged illegal construction on private Palestinian land in the Kochav Ya’acov settlement.  The decision came after the state agreed to carry out a land ownership survey. Lawyers Michael Sfard, Shlomy Zecharya and Avissar Lev filed the petition on behalf of Ali Barakat, head of the village council of Akeb, whose constituents allegedly own the land.

One day, the real criminals will get their comeuppance.

That is not a threat but an expectation and observation.

P.S.  What to buy some property?

P.P.S.  Did you know that as of May 1968 a land survey was done by the Israel Lands Administration, the General Staff's Settlement Department and the Department of Agriculture. These were its findings: 50,000 dunums were in private Palestinian lands.
(see: Shlomo Gazit, The Carrot and the Stick: Israel's Policy in Judea and Samaria, 1967-68, B'nai B'rith Books, Washington, D.C., 1995) and that by November 1992, one year after the Madrid Peace Conference and the start of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, land held by Israel potentially for the use of Israeli settlers constituted more than 60 percent of the total area of Judea and Samaria and 35 percent of the total area of the Gaza Strip. Prior to 1948, Jews bought lands in the Judea and Samaria and when the Jordanian government took over, it passed the Custodian of Enemy Property Law and established the office of a Custodian of Enemy Property under whose administration the lands that had been bought by Jews were placed. These amounted to some 30,000 dunums out of the total area of 5.5 million dunums (see: Gazit, op. cit., p. 126).

As this pro-Arab source explains, land ownership is complicated and compounded by refusals to register such.


^

But The Int'l Court of Justice Decided

One of the claims the anti-Yesha crowd asserts in the field of international law is the use of the term "Occupied Palestinian Territory" by the International Court of Justice. For example, at para. 70-78:

At the close of its analysis, the Court notes that the territories situated between the Green Line and the former eastern boundary of Palestine under the Mandate were occupied by Israel in 1967 during the armed conflict between Israel and Jordan. Under customary international law, the Court observes, these were therefore occupied territories in which Israel had the status of occupying Power. Subsequent events in these territories have done nothing to alter this situation. The Court concludes that all these territories (including East Jerusalem) remain occupied territories and that Israel has continued to have the status of occupying Power.

Well, this "occupation" actually is not illegal in and of itself. If Israel responded to aggression with defensive operations, especially since no Arab state and the terrorist groups they sponsored ever honored or respected that Green Line during the 19-year period prior to 1967, Israel's "occupation" could be just.

The Court's language, true, is a bit problematic here at para. 87:

The Court first recalls Article 2, paragraph 4, of the United Nations Charter, which provides that:

“All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations,”

and General Assembly resolution 2625 (XXV), entitled “Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States” (hereinafter “resolution 2625 (XXV)”), in which the Assembly emphasized that

“No territorial acquisition resulting from the threat or use of force shall be recognized as legal.”

...the same is true, it observes, of its corollary entailing the illegality of territorial acquisition resulting from the threat or use of force.

Who, then, was the aggressor in and prior to 1967, and can a state, in a defensive action, assert a territorial claim? And, I stress, we have not discussed Israel's rights to the territories of Judea and Samaria, as well as Gaza in principle, reflected in League of Nations Mandate decisions of 1922 and 1923, following the San Remo Conference decision of 1920 and the spirit of the deliberations of the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference.  As noted, "the ICJ says absolutely nothing about the fact that the League of Nations Mandate referred to 'the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people' and that this injunction was understood at the time by the League of Nations and by the British Mandatory Power as applying to the whole of Palestine west of the River Jordan, that is, including the present-day West Bank".

More mix-up is in the decision textof the ICJ Opinion, at para. 101, where you can read:

The Court accordingly finds that that [the IVth] Convention is applicable in the Palestinian territories which before the conflict lay to the east of the Green Line and which, during that conflict, were occupied by Israel, there being no need for any enquiry into the precise prior status of those territories.

But if there is no "precise prior status", perhaps the judges are wrong?

There is an inherent contradiction as welll as sever unclarity here.

Furthermore, Judge Pieter Kooijmans of The Netherlands, in a separate opinion, added at para. 30,

"The Court has refrained from taking a position with regard to territorial rights and the question of permanent status."

In addition, Israel assumed the administration over the territory after the Kingdom of Jordan, which had illegally annexed those territories in April 1950 following a military occupation, attacked Israel which led to the 1967 Six-Day War.  The region has been essentially disputed land with the claimants being Israel, Jordan, and Arabs referring to themeselves a "Palestinians". The final status and borders are final negotiations issues according to UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 and the language of the Camp David Agreements and the Oslo Accords.

All this is ignored, which I would say is either bias or prejudice, political or judicial.

The court's "historical narrative" has as its chronology that the Armistice Agreement of 1949 is followed immediately at para. 73 by this formulation:

"In the 1967 armed conflict, Israeli forces occupied all the territories which had constituted Palestine under British Mandate (including those known as the West Bank, lying to the east of the Green Line)."

As I've emphasized, the years and character of Jordanian rule are not mentioned, nor is there any examination of Jordan's status in Judea and Samaria, the geographical terms, we should recall, employed by the United Nations in its November 29, 1947 partition recommendation. The historical narrative of the ICJ was critically flawed as pointed out in the separate opinions of the minority judges such as Judge Rosalyn Higgins of the United Kingdom, comments in her separate opinion at para. 16:

"I find the 'history' as recounted by the Court in paragraphs 71-76 neither balanced nor satisfactory."

Funnily enough, there was a Jordanian judge sitting, Judge Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh who, as expected, ignored any anti-Jordanian matters that could spoil the anti-Israel opinion.

In March 1994, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright, stated as recorded in UN Security Council Official Records, 3351st Meeting, 18 March 1994, UN Doc. S/PV.335 p.12 (1994):

"We simply do not support the description of the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 war as occupied Palestinian territory. In the view of my government, this language could be taken to indicate sovereignty, a matter which both Israel and the PLO have agreed must be decided in negotiations on the final status of the territories."

So, what about this "occupation" business?

As Robbie Sobel pinpoints:

"From 1948 till 1967 the West Bank had been under Jordanian rule and the Gaza Strip under Egyptian control. The UN General Assembly however refrained from designating these territories as occupied Jordanian or occupied Egyptian territory, presumably since the majority of states, including the Arab states, had not recognized the West Bank as Jordanian territory and Egypt had not even claimed sovereignty over the Gaza Strip.

From 1967 till 1976 the UN General Assembly resolved the dilemma by referring to occupied "Arab" territories and often simply as "occupied territories." From 1976 onward, the increased political clout of the PLO at the UN led to a change. A 1976 UN General Assembly resolution referred to "the right of the Arab states and peoples whose territories are under Israeli occupation". From 1977 the reference becomes "Palestinian and other Arab territories."

No justice.  Not legal analysis.  Political clout.  Ideology.

Other matters are what the Court did and did not say about the Green Line, Jerusalem and the status of the body known as the Palestinian Authority.

As I was informed, the ICJ did not provide a ruling on the status of the territory. The Court does apply the rules of belligerent occupation but without any rendering any opinion on the status of the territories. Yes, the court’s opinion that Israel has no claim to the land is stated far more directly in para.114-122. In any event, while the Court is rendering its opinion, it is not making a ruling on anything. Israel was not a party to the proceedings, which were, in any event, advisory, as the title to the case states. The Court gave its advice to the General Assembly on its opinion. It is entitled to its opinion, and Israel is entitled to its own opinion. As expressed to me - "Bottom line, the claim that the ICJ gave a ruling is flat out not true."

As Rothenberg and Bell have noted, “The UN General Assembly (GA) resolution asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for an advisory opinion is actually a request for an endorsement of an already-stated political opinion of the GA. The ICJ lacks jurisdiction over the case because the GA has dictated the desired result. The court is not authorized to make endorsements of the GA’s political opinions dressed in legal garb.” (See: Laurence E. Rothenberg and Abraham Bell, “Israel’s Anti-Terror Fence: The World Court Case” (2004) Jerusalem Viewpoints.

_____________

I was assisted by material in Jerusalem Viewpoints, No. 535 28 Elul 5765 / 2 October 2005, The ICJ Opinion on the Separation Barrier: Designating the Entire West Bank as "Palestinian Territory" by Robbie Sabel

and NGO-Monitor Analysis, October 4, 2003 as well as Gerald Steinberg's article.

I Belong to a Settlement

No. Shiloh is a Jewish residential community. Populated by revenant Jews.  Not a "settlement".

But according to this study, I do belong to a settlement:-

Defining & Characterizing Virtual Settlements

The need to distinguish between a virtual community's CMC [computer mediated communication] messages and the virtual community itself creates a dilemma similar in form to those faced by a number other disciplines. For example, after centuries of debate over the mind-body problem, psychology now distinguishes between the act of cognition and observable behavior. Likewise, it is necessary to distinguish between a community and its material in order to determine when a series of group-CMC demonstrates the existence of a virtual community. Therefore a distinction will need to be made between the cyber-place within which a virtual community operates, which will be termed a virtual settlement, and the virtual communities themselves.

Defining Characteristics

For a cyber-place with associated group-CMC to be labeled as a virtual settlement it is necessary for it to meet a minimum set of conditions. These are: (1) a minimum level of interactivity; (2) a variety of communicators; (3) a minimum level of sustained membership; and (4) a virtual common-public-space where a significant portion of interactive group-CMCs occur. The notion of interactivity will be shown to be central to virtual settlements. Further, it will be shown that virtual settlements can be defined as a cyber-place that is symbolically delineated by topic of interest and within which a significant proportion of interrelated interactive group-CMC occurs. It also follows that the existence of a virtual settlement demonstrates the existence of an associated virtual community.

(1) Minimum Level of Interactivity

It has been argued by some sociologists [(Minar and Greer 1969)] that our understanding of community begins with an examination of interaction and that leads to commitment to a given place and group. Both communities and virtual communities are composed of “groups”...

And it goes on:

Characterizing virtual settlements

Once a virtual settlement has been identified it can be characterized via an empirical description of its CMC-message-system. For example, does the virtual settlement under study have a large but unstable population? Or is it small and cohesive? Such a characterization can result from the modeling of a number of variables such as the number of subscribers; the number of posters; the density of posting; the number of topics generated over a particular period of time; the average length of postings. and so on. In a similar fashion, traditional human settlements have been characterized by archaeologists who have been interested in such issues as the development of sedentism, agrarian-based urban settlements and the growth of industrially based cities.

In both archaeology and the field of CMC, researchers focus on cultural artifacts: the archaeologist on scarabs, pots, arrow heads, the remains of cities, etc., the CMC researcher on listserv postings, web site structures, web site content, number of spams[2], Usenet content, etc. These artifacts can provide an integrative framework for a settlement's life, be it virtual or real, or they can obstruct or fail to facilitate otherwise viable, active behavior. As will be shown below the discipline of archaeology provides insights into how such characterizations of virtual settlements can be studied in order to expand our understanding of communication in general...

Well, well.

^

Subliminal Advertising

My spam box is filled with offers with the key words being:

Bigger.

Enlargement.

Larger.

Growth.

Is there a subliminal message about the Land of Israel in there?

^

Hebron Hootenanny at Machpela Cave

I filmed this a few months ago - a group of Sfaradim enjoying the Cave of the Patriarchs:



^

Our Construction Is Legal (Peace Now Cries Foul)

Back in March, Peace Now tried to muscle Shiloh around.

And now:

The Defense Ministry has approved two plans for the construction of 119 housing units in the West Bank settlement of Shilo, Ynet has learned. The building permits were revealed in the State's response to a petition filed with the High court of Justice by Peace Now eight months ago after the construction of 40 units had already begun on a number of Shilo plots...Defense Minister Ehud Barak's bureau said in response: "Anything approved in Shilo is just approval of the existing situation; any additional construction will need a new permit."

In its petition, Peace Now claimed the construction was illegal and was not included in the original plan for the area, as approved by the Central Bureau of Planning at the Civilian Administration of Judea and Samaria. In its response, submitted Wednesday, the State said that in light of the petition it has decided to retroactively authorize all permanent housing units included in the two construction plans.

If implemented, the construction plans would expand Shilo by 60%. There are currently 195 housing units in the settlement, in addition to caravans.

To clarify: this was not a matter of illegality.  It's one of internal zoning.  Slow bureaucracy.  Certain areas did not yet have their status altered.   Dany Dayan had an article about the kibbutzim going through decades of administrative paperwork to accomplish similar moves.

P.S.  195?  I'll start counting.  We have about 300 families.

^

The Weak Foundations of Netanyahu's Temple Mount Attitude

Temple Mount report in Haaretz:-

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the Jerusalem municipality and the Public Security Ministry to delay the execution of a demolition order for the Mugrabi Bridge...Egypt's warnings that the move could lead the Tahrir Square protestors to focus their anger on Israel, prompted Netanyahu to delay the demolition...the Islamic Waqf – the religious authority which manages the Temple Mount – launched a public campaign against the demolition, arguing the demolition was part of an Israeli plot to damage the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

A similar campaign was started in Jordan, with the backing of the Ministry of Awqaf Islamic Affairs and Holy Places...Sources have indicated that Netanyahu's decision to delay the demolition was also prompted by Jordanian warnings that the move could incite riots in the Hashemite Kingdom.

This decision, in the first instance, saves Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitz:

Arutz Sheva has received a report that the city of Jerusalem is about to file charges against Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovich of the Western Wall and Holy Places in his capacity as chairman of the Western Wall Heritage Fund. The charges stem from the fund's failure to respond to a demand made a month ago by City Engineer Shlomo Eshkol to dismantle the wooden ramp from the Western Wall Plaza to the Rambam (Mughrabi) Gate to the Temple Mount and replace it...

Mr. Prime Minister,

the "time factor" never works to Israel's advantage.

The Waqf, local and Jordanian (which views itself, as a full partner in the administration of the Temple Mount stemming from the Jordan-Israel Peace Treaty: ARTICLE 9 - PLACES OF HISTORICAL AND RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE: Each party will provide freedom of access to places of religious and historical significance. In this regard, in accordance with the Washington Declaration, Israel respects the present special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem. When negotiations on the permanent status will take place, Israel will give high priority to the Jordanian historic role in these shrines...), willl always make noise.

And who knows when the turmoil in Egypt will end?

The Islam world is engaged in Tewmple denial in any case, not matter what is done.

If fundamentalist Islamic forces are at work in Egypt and Jordan that is a long-time development, has always negated Israel's administration of the Temple Mount and will respond even more forcefully after Netanyahu's waiting period is done.

But more important, Netanyahu has to make clear that that bridge work is on the exterior of the Temple Mount and is to be done to save lives.  What religion could be against protecting people's safety?

Netanyahu's approach, based on a frightened attitude, is displaying weakness.

And, in the Arab Middle East. that is dangerous.

^

Gorenberg - Facile, Fraudulant and Fake

Most recently, there was Gershom Gorenberg in The New Prospect. (Pssst. Richard Silverstein considers him a "liar". Two years ago, he was praising Benny Morris in The New York Review of Books.

In a recent appearance, he said:

...there are three things necessary to restablish Israeli democracy: The separation of synagogue and state, the graduation from being a national liberation movement to one that takes care of its citizens, and an end to the occupation...American Jews need to give up idea of a besieged Zionism...

Back in 2006, he had written in Building Nowhereland in the Washington Post:

Out on Highway 60, the bulldozers are at work...Once again they are changing the face of the land in a way that makes life far more difficult for Palestinians while damaging Israel's own long-term interests.

Actually, at least security-wise, the fence, in the long-term, has proven that the territories must be retained someway/somehow by Israel. For me, that's quite useful.

Now, in Israel’s Other Occupation in the New York Times, his piece is summarized as

The ethnic conflict in the West Bank is metastasizing into Israel, threatening its democracy and unraveling its society.

And in the article, he states

JEWS began settling in occupied territory weeks after the Israeli conquest of 1967. The strategy of settlement was born before Israeli independence in 1948, when Jews and Arabs fought for ethnic dominance over all of British-ruled Palestine. By settling the land, Jews sought to set the borders of the future Jewish state, one acre at a time. Post-1967 settlers, though they saw themselves as a vanguard, were really re-enacting the past, reviving an ethnic wrestling match — this time backed by an existing Jewish state.

Now, the attitudes and methods of West Bank settlement are inevitably leaking back across a border that Israel does not even show on its maps.

Let's be clear, (a) Jews have been "settling" in the Land of Israel for 3500 years and throughout the period of Dispersion and loss of political independence - under Roman, Byzantine, Persian, Muslim, Crusader, Ottoman and British conquerers and occupiers and (b) that historic connection of (a) formed the basis for the League of Nations' decision, preceded by the Balfour Declaration, the Versailles Peace Conference deliberations and the San Remo Conference decision, which recognized and guaranteed by power of international law the right of Jews to close settlement on state and waste lands in the territory of Palestine which was truncated and after September 1922 consisted of all the land between the Jordan River west to the Mediterranean Sea.

The "border" he seeks to sanctify, the "Green Line", was artificial, temporary and the result of Israel's defensive actions against illegal Arab aggression.  It's 19-year existence was of total divorce from Jewish history but Gorenberg is just that type of Jew - the 'now'.

In the NYT piece, he 'borrows' language to describe the reality of Acre and the rest of the north:

Segregation, though, is intrinsically a denial of rights. The countryside throughout the Galilee region of northern Israel is dotted with a form of segregated exurb, the “community settlement.” In each of these exclusive communities, a membership committee vets prospective residents before they can buy homes.

Havde you seen Jews in Arab villages?  No.  Because they get stoned, robbed and killed.  That was the modern Zionist experience and that's why, partially, separated communities developed and also because Jews wanted to be socialists and farmers and do all the hard work themselves.  Othwerwiuse, Gorem would still be calling them as "lording over slaves", I guess.  The kibbutzim are Gorenberg's original sinners but they are of the Left and so they are sidelined to his story.

But he has another problem:

If and when Israel finally leaves the West Bank quagmire behind, it will face a further challenge: the settlers need to be brought home. But allowing them to apply their ideology inside Israel, or to transplant whole communities from the West Bank to the Galilee, will only make the situation worse in Israel proper.

Would he wish we went to the moon, or Mars?

Who is the segregationist?
^

Minority vs. Majority Rule: B. Begin's Backward Democracy

Benny Begin writes of "Knowing how to govern" and exclaims:

Some on the Right, who belong to the parliamentary majority dubbed "the right-wing camp," have been lamenting the so-called dire political straits they are in. "We have been in power for 30 years but we are not 'in control,'" is one common refrain...[but...they have no idea how to govern, or worse, do not want to govern.

These grumblers are blind to the failure of their traditional rivals. The Left's representation in the Knesset has dwindled and is just a small minority; socialism has been out of favor as an economic system for years now; only a small number of people still believe that peace and security are within reach given the current Arab leadership in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip; about 600,000 Jews currently reside "outside the Green Line" [demarcating Israel's border with Jordan prior to the Six-Day War].

But there are still "left-wing collaborators in the Likud," one bitter and frustrated hero told me last week. "They frustrate every piece of legislation put forth by the national camp," he said...[but]...these political gluttons are actually referring to a completely different thing: "unchecked right-wing rule."

...An unchecked majority tends to steam roll others. If the majority fails to understand that it must restrain itself, we must introduce measures to check it and see that they are followed...it is incumbent upon Likud members to frustrate repeated efforts to introduce a free rein...I am not talking about being magnanimous, but rather being decent. It is not about being just; it is about being smart.

...Knowing how to govern entails recognizing the limits of power and the minority's rights. Knowing how to govern means translating into action Hillel the Sage's maxim of treating others the way you would like to be treated. History has shown that a government whose supporters are ashamed of it will ultimately lose its grip on power.

Begin, to support his magnanimity, asserts:

Many political office-holders come from the Right. This is also true when it comes to various senior management positions and many other fields in the country.

This, however, is not quite correct. And in being slightly incorrect, Minister Begin is being too harsh on his fellow Likudniks.

There are three main anti-democratic elites in Israel's society: the media, the courts and the academia. Each of those three interlock with each other to defend each other and to launch coordinated attacks against 'hostile' forces. The frustration caused is problematic because while there is no "democratic solution", because those elites are undemocratically operating after entrenchment, any move to undermine their power is labeled as undemocratic.

A case in point: when Mr. Begin became Minister of cience he was approached by someone who had previously worked in the Ministry, had a collgeg degree and was sane and normal. It was suggested that he become Begin's PPS (personal private secretary) or senior advisor. Begin declined and moreover, kept the Meretz-appointed Director-General in place.

That is not how to "rule" and there is nothing undemocratic or trampling of a minority in that. In fact, with that attitude, the minority is what rules.

I cannot disagee with Begin's understanding of what is required in Israel in terms of honoring the mores of public democratic beahvior.  But if those aren't shared by all, those who aren't willing to make sure the rules apply to all for all will lose out.

^

London's West Bank

I was wondering, if I ever do get to London - and I have every intention to do so (I even have an invitation from the Board of Deputies to appear before them*) - could this venue be an appropriate location for a press conference?

Think of the possibilities.

___________

*
From a November 24 email of the President of the Board, Vivian Wineman

...I had not heard of Yisrael Medad before this conference and understand that he has not been involved publicly in defending Israel on the international scene. The committee decided not to invite him but to invite others with similar views a decision which I did not initiate but with which I agreed and am part of. If Yisrael Medad wishes to come to the UK to promote his views we would of course be prepared to receive him at the Board.

Regards Vivian

^

A Challenge to the Manchester Big Tent Event

I have received a bit of criticism for publishing my own criticism of one aspect of the Manchester Big Tent Event.  I would love to know if Jonathan Freedland received criticism for his JC piece which included this thinking directed at the conference:

...I wonder if they [Israel's friends in the British Jewish community] realise that the fight for the Israel they love may also need to take other forms - and not just against the obvious enemies.  Start with...Hebron...The centre of a city of 175,000 people has been utterly emptied, its streets deserted, its shops vacant, thanks to a policy the Israeli army calls "sterilisation" - ensuring the area is clear and safe for Hebron's 800 Jewish settlers...A map shows purple roads where no Palestinian cars are permitted, yellow roads where no Palestinian shops are allowed to open and red roads where no Palestinians are even allowed to walk.

a.  first, that division was part of the agreement, to divide Hebron to H-1 and H-2.
b.  the use of "sterilisation" instead of "cleansing" is a nefarious use of language which Freedland knows is not only wrong of itself, but is a play to Nazi ideology and practice. It is also a play to all the UK's antisemites.  That is sick.
c.  the reality was not that the centre was emptied for security but that the lack of security, the Arab terror, like the assassination of an infant girl, the stabbings of worshippers, the killings in their homes of Jews resulted in a necessary tightening of security measures.
d. don't fret, Jonathan, Jews can't walk in more than 95% of Hebron so who is more discriminated against?

...All this has made life so impossible that an estimated 42 per cent of the families who once lived in this central part of town have now moved out.

Maybe if there was less anti-Jewish violence, they'd wish to move back in.  Jews can't move about so easily.

Israelis can walk freely down streets that are barred to Palestinians, surveying the shuttered shops that have been covered with some of the most vile graffiti I have ever seen. The familiar "Death to the Arabs" is there, but so is "You have Arabs, you have mice," the words covered up, but still legible.

Yes, that is really nasty but someone obviously thought enough to cover it up.  And the Arabs?  When not acting violently, their vile sermons in mosques, calling Jews monkey, pigs and pygmies are at least as vicious.

...according to my guide, Yehuda Shaul, a kippah-wearing army reservist who served two long tours in Hebron and who now works with the Breaking the Silence movement which, via the new Yachad organisation, has shown several Anglo-Jewish Zionist youth leaders and synagogue activists around the city. Shaul believes that Hebron simply reveals the reality of the occupation in an intense, distilled form.

Nice to know how Yahad works, and with whom.

...if the Israel we love is the Jewish, democratic state established in the Declaration of Independence then we need to fight for it. It is under threat and not only from the usual suspects, the hostile media and the "delegitimisers". It is also threatened from within, by Israel's own actions...

If anyone is threatening Israel "from within", one need look no farther than someone like Freedland who is surely an ASHed Jew.


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Are You In Solidarity With "Palestine"?

If you are in solidarity with "Palestine", then you probably visit this site:

And did you notice the map logo there?

Yes, the PLO map which indicates that in 1964, when the organization was founded, it intended to "liberate" Israel, all of it, to the sea:

No solidarity, at all, with Israel then?

And consider the campaign's aims:

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) campaigns for justice for the Palestinians. We also advocate for Palestinians' civil, political and human rights, in accordance with international law.

PSC is established to campaign:

for the right of self-determination for the Palestinian people
for the right of return of the Palestinian people
(to where?)for the immediate withdrawal of the Israeli state from the occupied territories
(how are the "occupied" territories defined?)against the oppression and dispossession suffered by the Palestinian people
in support of the rights of the Palestinian people and their struggle to achieve these rights
to promote Palestinian civil society in the interests of democratic rights and social justice
to oppose Israel's occupation and its aggression against neighbouring states
(wait! so what was the above aim about? what "occupation"?)in opposition to racism, including anti-Jewish prejudice and Islamophobia, and the apartheid and Zionist nature of the Israeli state

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Success to the Big Tent Event in Manchester

I wish all the participants at tomorrow's Manchester Big Tent Event all success, even if I cannot be there as decided by the committee that decides such decisons.

I ask them to remember that the basis for their conclave is the Reut Report on BDS and that one of the two operative conclusions is:

Jewish institutions meanwhile will have to allow for innovative thinking, new tools, and aggressive experimentation that usually takes place outside of the established community.

and this method instruction:

Open tent 3: It takes 'all instruments of the orchestra' to win this fight - from the political right and left. This principle requires embracing the paradox in which the more critical a left-wing voice against Israeli politics, the more credible its stance against delegitimization. Simply put, the most effective voices against Israel's delegitimization come from the far liberal and progressive left.

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Egyptian "Democracy" Prognosis: Antisemitism Resurgent

From Eldad Beck's on-the-scene report:

Cairo rally: One day we'll kill all Jews


A Muslim Brotherhood rally in Cairo's most prominent mosque Friday turned into a venomous anti-Israel protest, with attendants vowing to "one day kill all Jews."

Some 5,000 people joined the rally, called to promote the "battle against Jerusalem's Judaization."

...Speakers at the event delivered impassioned, hateful speeches against Israel, slamming the "Zionist occupiers" and the "treacherous Jews." Upon leaving the rally, worshippers were given small flags, with Egypt's flag on one side and the Palestinian flag on the other, as well as maps of Jerusalem's Old City detailing where "Zionists are aiming to change Jerusalem's Muslim character."

...Spiritual leader Dr. Ahmed al-Tayeb charged in his speech that to this day Jews everywhere in the world are seeking to prevent Islamic and Egyptian unity.

"In order to build Egypt, we must be one. Politics is insufficient. Faith in Allah is the basis for everything," he said. "The al-Aqsa Mosque is currently under an offensive by the Jews…we shall not allow the Zionists to Judaize al-Quds (Jerusalem.) We are telling Israel and Europe that we shall not allow even one stone to be moved there."

Muslim Brotherhood spokesmen, as well as Palestinian guest speakers, made explicit calls for Jihad and for liberating the whole of Palestine. Time and again, a Koran quote vowing that "one day we shall kill all the Jews" was uttered at the site. Meanwhile, businessmen in the crowd were urged to invest funds in Jerusalem in order to prevent the acquisition of land and homes by Jews...

Spring?

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Iran on Israel's Borders

It's official (via IMRA):

Senior Military Aide to the Iranian Supreme Leader Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi warned Israel that should it attack Iran's nuclear sites, Tehran and its regional allies, including Hezbollah and Hamas, will crush its cities with rocket and missile attacks.


Safavi, who formerly led the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), told Iran's Arabic-language satellite channel Al-Alam "in case of an attack by Israel, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza will also join the fighting".

As he says,

"There will be no need for Iran to launch ballistic missiles at Israel, because all the Zionist cities are within the range of our ally Hezbollah's Katyusha (rockets)," he continued.

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A Comment to Gershom Gorenberg

Comment left at The New Prospect blog of Gershom Gorenberg:

Having become a Zionist, a quite active one I would suggest, in 1962 in New York, and living there until 1970 and being very involved, can I say that Gershom congratulates himself too much, I fear. He has trea no new path. Robust debates with opponents have always taken place even in strongly supportive congregations and organizations of the right of Jews to reside in Judea and Samaria, something they did - which usually is ignored - throughout recorded history except for the brief 19 year period of Jordanian illegal occupation between 1948-1967. Somehow, persons like Gershom rarely dissect the history as regards "rights", "legality", etc. when it comes to the reality of that period and that immediately prior, seeking to distract attention from the behavior of the local Arab nationalist movement in Mandated Palestine which engaged for 30 years in a prolonged campaign of ethnic cleansing of Jews from Hebron, Shchem/Nablus, Gaza, Jenin and Jerusalem's Old City in addition to the newer locations such as the 4 kibbutzim in Gush Etzion, at Bet HaAravah, the moshavim of Atarot and Neveh Yakov accompanied by terror, gto be continued througout the 1948-1967 period first by fedyeen and then by Fatah/PLO. Gershom & Co. always start from June 10, 1967 and a supposed "illegal occupation".

Of course, his back row intelocuter has a point. Besides that opinion, of someone who subsequently left Israel and ran away to more progressive quarters, Israel's legal minds and its Supreme Court, have awarded legal approbation to almost all of the construction of Jewish homes, factories, farms and schools in Judea and Samaria, distinguishing between that issue and that of eventual political sovereignty. In assisting the view that Jews should be banned from Judea & Samaria, prohibited from living there, Gorenberg actually serves the darkest forces of illegality, apartheid and violation of Jewish rights as guaranteed by the highest legal forum at the time which recognized the historic connection of the Jewish people with that territory as part of the land area to become the reconstituted Jewish national home (for a collection of opinions, see: http://myrightword.blogspot.com/2011/08/are-settlements-legal.html)

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"I Believe" - Josh Waller's Clip Is Back Up

It's back up:



I first had it here but it underwent further work.

The song's message:

“I Believe” is a song that crushes the barriers of ideological differences. The foundation of an eternal righteous plan for the redemption of the whole earth begins with a special covenant to a specific people in a specific land. In the millenniums following this promise men have sought to alter, to distort, and even undo God’s beautiful plan.

This song challenges us to make a stand with the Word of God:

He remembers His covenant forever…the word He commanded for a thousand generations…the covenant He made with Abraham…the oath He swore to Isaac. He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree, to Israel as an everlasting covenant: "To you I will give the land of Canaan as the portion you will inherit." Psalm 105:8-11

Many of the Jewish people obviously understand this eternal promise. We see it in their actions. They have come back to the land the prophets foretold they would return to - again, the evidence of the existence of our Creator and the truth of His Word.

At this moment in history, when the nations unite to discuss the future of the Promised Land, every person is called to make a righteous choice. Today, as we watch and listen to this song ……as we sing it ….as we witness the prophetic word confirmed ….may this be your declaration of faith in an eternal God and an eternal promise. May this song unite the hearts of every Bible believing person – both Jew and Non-Jew - all those longing for the Redemption in Jerusalem.

Make the Stand …….

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Uri Avnery and His Mother

His mother didn't appeciate his visit to Arafat and according to her will (below) didn't leave him one single penny:

"I, Hilda Wolf (Osterman) nee Englestein, ID746976, 50 Lamed Hey St., Givatayim, arrange my will as follows:

1.  To my son, Uri Avnery, ID 39517; 10A Rupin St., Tel Aviv, I leave not one single penny as he did not take car of me and, instead, went to visit the murderer Yasser Arafat".

Really.

See here in Haaretz:

Haolam Hazeh also vexed Avnery's mother, Hilda Ostermann, who wrote her son out of her will. "I do not leave a penny to my son Uri, who instead of taking care of me went off to visit that murderer, Yasser Arafat," she wrote.

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