Not Richard Silverstein. Nope.

A Moser in Judaism is basically a Jew who informs on another Jew to non-Jewish authorities. The law relating to a Moser has evolved over time. Jewish communities that lived in societies that discriminated against Jews, treated Mosers more harshly than those who lived in societies with fair justice systems. For instance, one who informs on a Jewish pedophile or criminal today in the United States, ought not be considered a Moser. The law of Moser is not, in fact, akin to the Mafia’s code of Omerta. The law of Moser was never meant to help criminal Jews escape Justice. It was meant to prevent injustice.

The law of Moser’s harsh strictures, often requiring the administration of the death penalty, also reflected the fact that such informants often lied in order to curry favor with the anti-Jewish authorities.

Recently, a team of at least 11 and as many as 17 people, killed the leader of Hamas’ Military wing, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Mabhouh was said to be in charge of Hamas weapons procurement from Iran and was personally involved in the kidnapping and murder of two Israeli soldiers. The suspects arrived in Dubai bearing a number of fake European passports and are suspected of being Israeli but that has yet to be proven unequivocally.

Despite that, self-described pro-Israel, pro-Zionist Jewish blogger Richard Silverstein, after posting photos of the suspects, expressed his fondest hope for those that carried out this extra-judicial killing as follows:

I would like to see Dubai take out Interpol warrants for these Israeli murderers. Then I would like to see Dubai request that the ICC try them when they are caught. I would like Israeli progressives to watch out for these people and report them when they see them so they can be identified even if they choose to stay in Israel where they can’t be captured. No more impunity

Are the people that committed this killing Israelis? We don’t absolutely know. Are they murderers? Is killing an enemy combatant, with blood on his hands, actively engaged in plotting the deaths of civilians, a murder? Or is it the sort of measured response to terrorism originating in Gaza, urged for by no less than Justice Goldstone in his infamous Report?

But one cannot help but be struck by the bile and pure hatred emanating from Richard Silverstein’s exhortation. He not only wishes ill against people defending Israel, he seeks to recruit fellow progressives in Israel to root out and bring to justice the suspects he hopes they will find in their midst. Will such suspects receive a fair trial in Dubai? I’m guessing… not so much. Will they receive a fair trial in the International Criminal Court? Well, Richard Silverstein is no expert on International law amongst other things he’s not an expert on. If he was he’d know that this sort of operation falls outside the ambit of the ICC. But whatever. This isn’t the first time Richard Silverstein has made a completely idiotic statement, and I suspect it won’t be the last.

Of course we can debate the merit of such killings. I have no doubt that Mabhouh will soon be replaced by someone else. But for a Jew to express such unbridled hatred against another Jew, and to actively urge people to turn them in, one has to wonder how the law of Moser ought to apply in such an instance.

Traditionally, no one was ever held in greater contempt than the Moser, and the sages often compared the informant to a serpent. Sanctions against Moserim range from death to excommunication. There isn’t much information about the penalty for one who encourages another to be a Moser. I would never suggest that Richard Silverstein be killed for his opinions and he excommunicated himself from Klal Yisrael a long time ago.

I guess the bottom line is that whatever the actual Jewish law is, Richard Silverstein has proven himself to be a world-class douche bag.

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Ambassador Oren heckled and disrupted by Hamas on Campus at UC Irvine. 12 arrested.

When will University President Michael Drake KICK THE MSU OFF CAMPUS? When will the University take responsibility for this?

We have heard Michael Drake for years DENY THAT THERE IS ANY SERIOUS PROBLEM. He said this publicly.

No problem, huh? The University has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on so-called bridge building which is for the most part totally ineffective. As long as the MSU is allowed on campus, as long as students are not held responsible for their actions, this kind of activity will continue.

Update: the police has released information about the protesters. It turns out that the president and vice president of the UCI MSU were among those who protested and were arrested.

Another video after the jump:

Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Strategic Threats Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon, spoke yesterday, on the last day of the Herzliya Conference. Addressing a panel on the strategic implications of a nuclear threshold Iran, he spoke of the threat Iran poses to the world, and Israel, in particular.

If Iran were to obtain nuclear weapons, Ya’alon said, it would threaten the free world, the Middle East, and Israel. ”As a threshold country, Iran would be able, in a short period of time, to acquire nuclear weapons and, undoubtedly, it is on its way to do so.” Moreover, he argued, this would destabilize the region, as, should Iran obtain nuclear weapons, there would be a domino-like effect, in which many other nations in the region would follow.

Ya’alon explained that Iranian nuclear goals are essentially two fold. According to Ya’alon, first, Iran wants to change the world order, allowing Islam to, once again, become a great power. Second, Iran wants to become a regional hegemony; a regional great power. This goal, he noted, will only increase as American presence decreases. With nuclear capabilities, “the extreme regime in Tehran would be able to promote its very extreme targets.” Proof of this is that Iran has not waited for nuclear capabilities to export terrorism and threaten the West, and particularly Israel. ”It is, already, active today, in many ways, to promote this, and it is the one to supply arms and weapons, including very advanced missiles, to the Hezbollah, Hamas, [and] to the Islamic Jihad. It [Iran] trains their [Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad] people, [and] it provides [them a] financial and political umbrella, at the expense of its own population, which is in a dire economic state.” A further threat, raised by Ya’alon, is that Iran could provide nuclear material to its proxies. This could, according to Ya’alon, pose an existential threat to Israel.

Ya’alon remarked that to prevent a nuclear Iran, Iran needs to be brought to the point in which it must make the choice between the bomb and state survival. Iran is a rational state, he argued, and will choose survival. As an example, he brought the period of 2003, prior to the US invasion of Iraq, in which Iran temporarily stopped its nuclear program, for fear that the United States would attack them, instead/as well. Action, however, will need to be taken to bring Iran to that point. ”We expect the world to be determined in its resolution to prevent this threat from becoming a reality, and to make it clear to the Iranian regime that it is in their own interests to forgo their plan to attain nuclear capabilities.” Concluding, Ya’alon explained that “we, in Israel, will not content ourselves with waiting for others to do our work. However, we have to prepare ourselves as well, because, in the words of our sages “Im ain ani li, mi li,” “if I am not for myself, who will be for me?”

For highlights of the speech, watch this:

For those unaware, Hamas runs a television station known as al-Aksa TV. This station is used by Hamas for propaganda purposes, including children’s TV shows which incite violence against and hatred of Israeli and Jews, in general. One of its more famous shows, the Pioneers of Tomorrow, displayed to the right, featured a Micky Mouse-like character, named Farfour, who advocated jihad against Israel, and preached anti-Semitism to his child audience, before being “martyred” by Israel. Outside of the Palestinian territories, the station is available through various satellite providers. In France, al-Aksa TV is provided by Eutelsat. Recently, the French government’s bureau in charge of audio-visual media, warned Eutelsat that they were breaking French law by providing al-Aksa TV, which “prohibits all forms of incitement to hatred or violence on the ground of race, religion or nationality.” Well done France in your steps to combat terrorism.

Today at 5:00 PM Brandeis University hosted Richard Goldstone and Dore Gold to discuss the Goldstone Report.

Well Dore Gold, Israel’s former ambassador to the UN and probably one of the primary intellectuals whose ideas influence Israel’s current government, bumped into a South African Jewish judge by the name of Richard Goldstone. The icy body language and the stern look on Gold’s face told half the story – there is a deep and profound anger among those who love and care deeply about Israel towards Goldstone and what he has, wittingly or unwittingly, wrought upon Israel.

There were a couple of things that stood out for me in the discussion. The first was that Goldstone’s report was indeed colored, tainted actually, by his palpable anger at Israel for not cooperating with him or letting him visit with his commission in an official capacity. It may even be pettiness, but he seemed to relish saying over and over that had Israel participated, then the report would likely have been different.

Along those lines, however, not only is it troubling that such a damaging report was written with some immature petulance at the key accused in the report, but it was even more troubling when Goldstone suggested that his report would have been different had the Israeli government supplied the same information that Gold provided in his presentation today.

This is exceptionally troubling because most of what Gold said was publicly available information. For example, he showed the clip from Colonel Kemp saying that Israel had fought a war that more than any other war in history sought safety for civilians. Kemp had made himself available to the commission which had no interest in hearing him. The speech he gave at the UNHRC hearing about the Goldstone Report, however, was first given three months ago and is available in full on the internet. So, for that matter, are the Hamas speeches shown by Gold. So are the maps by Israel of how the Palestinians organized their preparations for the upcoming war. Is Goldstone actually saying they couldn’t do some research on the internet?

Gold also spoke about how the scale of destruction that so affected Goldstone, which may have been misleading because about 20% of the houses in some neighborhoods had been booby-trapped by Hamas. In one stunning moment, he mentioned that the IDF has no record of attacking the mosque that according to Goldstone was attacked in daylight while worshippers were inside. The IDF says it has no record of this attack. If the IDF can prove this, that alone would undermine the credibility of this report permanently.

Also troubling was that Goldstone has clearly not thought through the implications of his report. When asked how Israel could fight wars where the enemy is embedded in civilian centers, he recommended commando raids. Great idea! Except for the possibility of capture by Palestinians that increases exponentially. Goldstone is familiar with what happens to Israeli captives and even took credit for bringing up Gilad Shalit. Does he think that a few more Israeli soldiers in Palestinian captivity for years without any Red Cross visits will help anybody? The short of it is that he doesn’t have a clue about how to fight a war like this with the limitations he has placed on Israel.

Dore Gold stressed that one of the key reasons this report is flawed is that it is the product of a UN full of bias toward Israel, which he called a minority state because it has no bloc to protect it. He acknowledged that the US helps Israel in the UN, but compared that to the automatic votes other countries can garner because of these blocs. He stressed the partiality of the UN Human Rights Commission and the absolute chutzpah of calling into question Israel’s abilities to investigate itself. Goldstone tried to rebuff by claiming the IDF should not be investigating itself and the absence of real convictions to date indicates their investigations are not meaningful. Gold bristled at this and twice spoke about how there are other bodies in Israel that also have authority to investigate Israeli conduct.

More than anything, this was a sad, sad event. Goldstone has put Israel in a difficult corner and those of us who see the many flaws with the report, flaws that undermine any objective reader’s assessment of this work, are outraged and deeply saddened by this report, its implications and its consequences.

Here are questions I’d like to ask Richard Goldstone:

- Why did you agree to work for a UN body that you acknowledge is anti-Israel?

- Why did you agree to do so when the country in question is Israel?

- Why did you not consider that your Zionism and Jewish faith made you an ideal candidate to ward off the criticism that a report from this tainted body would justifiably encounter?

- Why do you believe it’s fair to critique the validity of IDF investigations, but it’s reasonable for your committee to bring aboard people who accused Israel of war crimes before the commission ever met or had evidence presented?

- Why did you permit Israel’s refusal to collaborate with your mission, that was sent by this tainted UN body, to color your views as displayed in your constant complaints about this?

- Why did you accept testimonies from people that your own report acknowledges may have been intimidated?

- Why did you not research using readily available material such as videos, maps, images, speeches and even the Israeli government’s own materials, all of which are readily and easily available on the internet?

- Why have your comments about the report differed when addressing a Jewish audience and other audiences, as can be seen in your Forward interview? There you dicount the actual legal meaning of the report, which is very different than the claims made in the report or claims you have made since the report’s publication in other media outlets?

- Since you claim to have identified that Hamas was playing a “shrewd” game with their claim that the political body doesn’t have a connection with their military body, why did you trust anything that involved them or people who might be influenced or scared by them?

- Why do you provide leniency to Hamas and their crimes by using soft language and avoiding mention of them in lieu of using “armed groups” to deflect their responsibility?

- How is it conceivable that in a report such as this, where you claim the mandate was modified at your behest to investigate both sides, that you would deny or equivocate the accusations against Hamas that it used civilian areas and installations to conduct this war?

- How could you do so when there is available evidence in the public statements and speeches of Hamas leaders?

- Considering that you now know information you claim you didn’t have before, why have you not backtracked on any of your claims?

- When the UNHRC made a mockery of your report – and especially of your claim that the mandate of the commission had been changed – by planning to vote on a document about the report which charged Israel at length but did not mention the Palestinian crimes, why did you simply express your disappointment and agree to a neutral addition to the language which still did not mention the Palestinians or Hamas?

Very sad.

24 September 2009, Israeli Prime Minister delivered a stunning speech to the United Nations. His speech could be broken down in four parts: First, he denounced Ahmadinejad as a Holocaust denier and expressed his shock and horror at the Iranian Premier being given a forum for his rabid anti-Semitism at the United Nations. Second, he called upon the United Nations and its member states to prevent a nuclear Iran, which he noted, was not merely a danger to Israel, but a danger to the worlds. Third, he questioned the Goldstone Report, noting that while the United Nations saw it fit to claim that Israel had committed war crimes (despite having repeatedly warning civilians to leave the bomb zones via flyers, phone calls, and text messages), that same United Nations had not once denounced Hamas’ actions during the eight years in which Hamas terrorized the citizens of the south of Israel. He, also, reminded the Council of Israel’s right to self defence, a right endowed to all nations, including the Jewish one. Last, he discussed peace, stating quite clearly that Israel desperately wants peace, but not at the expense of its own security and state survival; peace and security must go hand-in-hand.

The Goldstone Commission Report, or more properly the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Human Rights in Palestine and Other Occupied Arab Territories Report on the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, has been released. Now, I havent read all 572 pages, however, from the bit I’ve skimmed and the New York Times article on it doesn’t look good. Essentially, it would appear that while claiming to be fair by calling out both Israel and Hamas forces for war crimes, there is a disproportionate emphasis on Israeli actions, almost to the point of ignoring those taken by Hamas. While I wish to reserve judgement on the report until I have the time to read the whole report, I will say that things do not bode well for justice when it is put aside in the name of fairness.

Oh Canada.

In today’s Globe and Mail, Naomi Klein, a well known Canadian author whose leftist views have found a considerable following, wrote an op-ed explaining what the protesters who wrote an open letter attacking the Toronto International Film Festival actually meant by their letter.

To explain the “protest” letter, Klein writes about the recent Gaza war, putting into another person’s mouth the phrase “war crimes” (so that it’s not coming directly from her) and of course not mentioning any context for the war such as the thousands of missiles and mortars that were launched at nearby Israeli civilian communities from Gaza over a period of years.

I happened to be visiting Sderot for a couple of those missile attacks, including one that went over where I was hiding (and shaking in fear) and landed a mere half a mile away. I can inform Ms. Klein that the feeling that Palestinians are playing Russian roulette with your life is highly unpleasant for tourists like me, but for those who have to live with it regularly, it is personally devastating. One of the families that generously invited me into their home subsequently lost it to a rocket and only by a miracle did nobody die. Still, Israel waited for years before finally responding to the attacks with its incursion into Gaza. War crimes indeed.

Continuing her obscured coverage of the situation, Klein continues:

“Israel is refusing to co-operate even with a toothless UN fact-finding mission, headed by respected South African judge Richard Goldstone,”

But she neglects to mention why Israel is refusing.

The reason that Israel is refusing is that the mission’s mandate as spelled out by the ridiculously biased UN Human Rights Council (recently headed by a human rights stalwart country such as Iran) gave Goldstone a mandate to investigate only a range of dates that precluded looking into the thousands of rockets and mortars launched at Israel. In fact, the Council only gave him a mandate to investigate Israel and not its enemy, Hamas, even though Hamas made it a point to fight only from urban areas. Even after Goldstone attempted to negotiate the terms of of the investigation, and despite assurances from the Council’s head that the mandate terms would indeed be changed, in a later public statement it became clear that none of the mandate terms had changed.

Irwin Cotler, a well known lawyer specializing in international law and former Justice Minister of Canada has written an excellent essay about this investigation. It is called, “The Goldstone Mission – Tainted to the Core.” Cotler writes about the mission’s mandate:

Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson stated that “the resolution is not balanced because it focuses on what Israel did, without calling for an investigation on the launch of the rockets by Hamas. This is unfortunately a practice by the Council: adopting resolutions guided not by human rights but by politics. This is very regrettable.” Asked to head up the mission before Goldstone, Robinson refused.

Not mentioning any of this, Klein continues to fudge the topic by criticizing “Israel’s desire to avoid scrutiny for its actions in the occupied territories.”

Really? Here is Cotler again, giving a sample of the bias that has Israel refusing to participate in this sham investigation.

The UN Human Rights Council – a UN body systematically and systemically biased against Israel. For this is a Council that has a special and permanent agenda item targeting Israeli violations of human rights, and another agenda item for the rest of the world – thereby singling out Israel for differential and discriminatory treatment. This is a Council that targets some 80% of its resolutions at one member state, Israel, while the major human rights violators enjoy exculpatory immunity. This is a Council that has had more emergency “Special Sessions” directed against Israel than against all the other countries of the world combined. This is a Council that excludes only one country – Israel – from membership in any regional grouping, thereby denying it international due process.

Never mind the facts, Klein is on a mission herself. The next point of her op-ed is to link Tel Aviv’s 100th birthday celebration to this supposed cover up of the investigation and other issues pertaining to Israel’s conflict with the Arabs and accuses TIFF of participating in a plan the Israelis have to promote Israel’s “prettier face” by sending cultural emissaries overseas along with their work.

She neglects to mention, of course, that it is political operatives such as herself who constantly tarnish Israel’s name with selective information as shown above that force Israel to present a “prettier face” abroad. Actually, she also neglects to mention that many countries use public relations to extend their “prettier faces,” even those that are involved in wars. Nope, Klein wants to talk about Israel.

(To continue, please click on the link!)

While TIFF independently selected Tel Aviv for its program, as its co-director Camerson Bailey has publicly stated, it did so in a truly celebratory year for this 100 year old city and therefore it is not surprising or sinister that Israeli diplomats would view inclusion in a world-class film festival in a positive light. Just because she can quote Israeli diplomats being openly glad that Toronto will focus on Tel Aviv, there is still no basis to Klein’s claims the TIFF is complicit with Israeli propaganda even when she hedges by saying they were complicit intentionally or innocently.

She writes, “Let’s be clear: No one is claiming the Israeli government is secretly running TIFF’s Tel Aviv spotlight.” This begs the question, why did her letter and John Greyson’s letter both bring up Israel’s “Brand Israel” campaign as well as only the names of media organizations headed by Jewish names in their letters?

Klein protests that the fault with TIFF is that its description of Tel Aviv “as a ‘young, dynamic city that, like Toronto, celebrates its diversity,” matches Israel’s stated propaganda goals to a T.’

Um, yes, because it happens to be the truth. Even if Ms. Klein doesn’t approve of this reality, it is the truth.

What isn’t the same between the two cities, of course, is that Israel was bombarded by Gaza for years after having exited Gaza. Even those activists who claim that Gaza was a prison because Israel did not allow its border crossings to be open to all movement, cannot deny that the crossings served the purposes of Palestinian terror groups…one of which became Gaza’s legitimate government (well, legitimate only as far as it goes since they did drop some Fatah men from rooftops of buildings just to buttress their election victory). Those rocket and mortar bombardments from Gaza do take away some of the similarities between Toronto and Tel Aviv since many of Tel Aviv’s residents have family and friends in the areas being bombarded by the Palestinians while other residents are soldiers who have had to fight in Gaza to attempt to put a stop to the Palestinian attacks.

And then Klein gives us the most delicious misdirection of all. She writes. “There are some wonderful Israeli films included in the program. They deserve to be shown as a regular part of the festival, liberated from this highly politicized frame.” How funny! Needless to say, she and her cohorts are the ones who politicized what was a depoliticized celebration of the film culture of a city called Tel Aviv.

She adds,

“Contrary to the many misrepresentations, the letter is not calling for a boycott of the festival. It is a simple message of solidarity that says: We don’t feel like partying with Israel this year.”

Well, that’s not exactly true now, is it? Greyson, who is one of the listed co-authors of the “protest” letter, did boycott the Festival and this letter is an attack on Israel’s very existence, not to mention every aspect of its society. This “protest” letter was formulated with the clear intent of twinning Israel with South Africa and of obscuring Israel’s legitimate and hard security needs by comparing them directly to South African apartheid. To suggest that a letter which emphasizes (falsely as we’ve noted already) that Israeli society resembles apartheid which was eliminated from South Africa through boycotts, is not about boycotting Israel may show how clever Naomi Klein is in using a turn of phrase, but it doesn’t fool anybody. It certainly didn’t fool the Toronto Star.

Ms. Klein is on the warpath. Her target is Israel. She is very intelligent and very knowledgeable. She clearly likes to win and she thinks she knows how to win against Israel. Her plan, it seems, is to attack Israel by obscuring the real nature of her attacks and to use her reputation and attractive media presence to push her points home and to gain followers. At every turn, however, she also paints Israel and its supporters in the worst possible light.

What Ms. Klein is doing with TIFF is no accident and is part of a plan concocted by her and, it seems, a small group of Jewish anti-Israel advocates from Toronto. [UPDATE! In a later post, I identified that this group may also be working with Palestine House in Toronto] In fact, I wonder whether they are behind the attack on the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition taking place in Toronto. In a recent public talk (start watching around minute 9:00 if you want to get to the juicy part) given to them when they launched this group last year, 2008, Ms. Klein said to her predominantly Jewish audience that it’s understandably difficult for some of her listeners to take the necessary steps to boycott Israel and to maintain the anti-Israel stance she was promoting. After all, she said, many of the people in the room had grown up with lies about Israel and the conflict; lies often told by family members and spiritual leaders. Parents, grandparents, rabbis!

That is one tough but very interesting tactic, often used by cults to distance their recruits from their past and ensure the recruits stay true to their mission. In fact, some Ultra-Orthodox Jewish kiruv groups that bring secular Jews into their fold often tell their new recruits that their parents are wrong-doers because of ignorance and have raised them wrong according to the Torah. They recommend treating the parents with great reserve because, for example, they may not keep kosher properly.

For Klein, it isn’t kosher for the parents of her cohorts and recruits to disagree with her views about Israel or Palestinians. They MUST be wrong. Their assessments about Israel MUST be wrong. They told their children lies about Israel! It’s really quite telling to see her attempt to eliminate other voices about Israel. When she says this to her Jewish audience, she says it after a pause, sounding serious and somber. The poor audience doesn’t even know what hit them – those poor victims of a massive misinformation campaign conducted by their own parents…

This is one tactic, but it resembles the general strategy which is reflected in the letter to TIFF and now in the Globe and Mail op-ed: eliminate dissenting or disagreeing voices by demonizing them. Even if it’s one’s parents. Thus, at TIFF, Israeli filmmakers’ work is connected to “destroyed Palestinian villages. ” Greyson blamed the TIFF organizers for creating a situation where an imaginary picket line has been created for their viewers just because these Israeli films were being shown as part of this TIFF program.

This is how Klein and Company are trying to shut down voices at this film festival and at others to come. Some of the films shown at TIFF are critical of Israel, but even they are not kosher according to Klein because they are the fruit of an apartheid-like country and its propaganda mission.

The truth, however, is not on the side of Ms. Klein and her cohorts, which is why they have to resort to attempts at oblique censorship. They don’t want people to attend the films and if they do, they want to shut down the filmmakers’ voices by deliberately connecting those voices to horrific crimes that are attributed to Israel. Anybody watching the entire program would see films, some of which received Israeli state funding, take critical positions against Israel and its society. Why shut these down?

It is also why an op-ed by Ms. Klein in the Globe and Mail resorts to denying what is plain for everybody to see (”We’re not boycotting, just seeking to celebrate,” she writes of a “protest” letter that compares Israeli actions to those of a country that was brought to its knees by boycotts) or that conveniently ignores pertinent facts like, oh, 8000 rockets launched at Israeli civilian communities.

The bottom line, however, for Ms. Klein and activists who join her is that the Palestinians have refused peace and their own state 5 times in the past 75 years, including just last year when Olmert offered to internationalize Jerusalem. Those are facts.

Today, the Palestinians could be sitting on a state that shares Jerusalem with Israel or with the world, that encompasses all of Gaza, 97% of the West Bank and additional land within Israel, that is launched with tens of billions of dollars of reparation money, that enables the Palestinian economy to thrive, that would probably have removed most and possibly all of the Jews from their midst, and that would have brought peace to the Palestinians, to Israel and to the entire region. Those are facts as well.

It is also a fact that Fatah, the party behind the Palestinian Authority, which currently leads the Palestinians in the West Bank, recently voted to keep the refugee camps open so as to maintain this important symbol. Too bad about the people living inside them and never mind that this symbol is no longer true. They also voted, by the way, to absorb a group that was responsible for many key terror attacks against Israeli civilians in the past decade.

Yes, ignoring these facts, Ms. Klein and her friends would prefer to support those who have avoided peace and continue to seek to destroy Israel – and there are no two ways about it since Hamas was elected in Gaza and their charter calls for Israel’s destruction (check out clauses 32, 22 and 13 for fun reading), denies any Jewish historical connection to the Israel and calls upon the fake book The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as their source for how Jews behave. They and Fatah (here is the PLO charter – check out clause 20), which stands behind the Palestinian Authority that leads the West Bank – Judea and Samaria – both deny Jewish history in Israel and use coded language in their meetings and charters that imply or directly demand the demise of Israel or the demise of Israel as a Jewish state.

Codes are not just for them, however. Ms. Klein’s letter to TIFF also uses coded language that seeks to undermine even the legitimacy of a city like Tel Aviv, which is a city built not on the ruins of Palestinian villages, as they would have us believe, but on the dreams and hard work of secular Zionists who built that city over decades from the dunes up, and then defended it with their blood after they were attacked by the Palestinians. The first attack on Jews after the 1947 UN vote for the Partition Plan (UNGAR 181) came from Jaffa in the form of a murder of 5 Tel Aviv Jews.

Tel Aviv didn’t happen the way Ms. Klein would have us believe. And the Palestinians could already be sitting on a state of their own, except that they keep stalling and delaying. One can only wonder whether Ms. Klein is teaching these facts to her family members, friends and readers. After all, she wouldn’t want to confuse them with lies about the conflict…

UPDATE!
Naomi Klein is quoted in Sept. 11 Toronto Star as saying she is not promoting the destruction of Israel.

Here are questions that somebody needs to ask Ms. Klein:

1. Are you affiliated with Palestine House, as the phone number for the media contact on the protest organizers’ press release indicates?

2. If so, why do you hide this fact in your open letters, interviews and press releases?

3. If your group is affiliated with Palestine House in Toronto, why are you involved with a group that openly advocates (as seen on their web site) a single state solution?

4. How aware are you that the timing of Palestine House’s actions with another cultural event in Toronto indicates they either work with or are strongly influenced by the Palestinian Authority, whose charter refuses to concede that Israel is a Jewish state or that Jews have a history in the region?

5. Are these views reconcilable with one of your group members since you claim that your group is not advocating for the destruction of Israel?

6. Or was this simply another semantic game and what you meant was that you do not seek the destruction of Israel as a state but you have no objection to its demise as a Jewish state?

For more Jewlicious reading about this:

Is The Toronto Film Festival Protest Organized by Palestine House, an Investigative Report

A former adviser to the PLO, member of CAIA, and speaker recommended in the past by Palestine House appears in press meeting of Toronto Film Festival protest group

Palestine House responds to inquiry about their involvement with protest letter writers (hint: they don’t like it)…on the protest letter website

Response to the “protest” letter against TIFF, 2009

Response to John Greyson’s letter to TIFF, 2009

Olmert’s offer to the Palestinians

Abbas choosing to stall on peace talks. Again.

The PA did not change its charter as per their Oslo obligations. This was recently publicly confirmed before the Fatah conference by two of Fatah’s leaders including Dahlan.

Israel’s peace offer at Taba.

Six Day War Anniversary Post

Enough already Gilad.

Seriously. I’m sick of this. I don’t want to do this anymore. Bring Gilad home so I can give him a whack upside the head. It might also help if you tweet and use the #GiladShalit and #Tweet4Gilad hash tags so we can make sure it trends. If you don’t know what that means, well… I don’t know what to tell you. Do something else for Gilad today. Write a blog post, leave a comment, email your friends or find him, give him a whack upside the head from me and then bring him home to his Mom.

Hamas has reported that they are willing to deal “positively” with Obama’s Middle East Peace Plan “but only in exchange for a long-term truce.”

So let’s break this down:

1) This says that Hamas is going to engage in peace talks with the maximum its willing to do is a long-term truce. Does anyone else see the problem with this? I was under the impresion that on engaged in peace talks in order to obtain peace. I guess Hamas’ leadership is unaware of this fact.

2) One has to wonder, what could possibly possess Israel to consider giving up land and dealing with a terrorist organization in peace talks when that organization isn’t even offering peace. Let’s be clear here, if all you’re talking about is a long-term truce (hudna), peace is not on the table. This is a game of saying “we’re willing to acknowledge tha tde facto you exist, but are unwilling to recognizethe fact that you’re here because we don’t believe you have the right to be.”  This a way for Hamas to achieve a semi-long term secession of battles without giving up its right to resistance (muqawama).

Underhanded? Duplicitous? More than a tad.