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.

A total failure of Palestinian leadership

When George W. Bush left office, he did so as one of the most unpopular departing presidents in US history with a 22% approval rating. Oddly enough, at 90%, he also enjoyed one of the highest approval ratings of any US President in history, in a poll taken shortly after 9/11. Meanwhile in Gaza, in what has been described by Eyad Sarraj, an independent Gaza politician and human rights activist, as a “total failure” of Palestinian leadership, a June 29 poll indicated that support for Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank fell to 18.8%. The low numbers were attributed to Israel’s month-long offensive against Hamas, the heightened economic blockade of Gaza, Hamas’ strong arm tactics against it’s people, Hamas’ extremist rhetoric, and the effects of the political gyrations in Iran. Well, all that and the fact that Palestinians seem to be waking up ton the fact that Hamas is simply not good for the people of Palestine. And that they’re douchebags. And that they probably snorted coke in college.

So what’s going to happen? Will Hamas sink Gaza into further isolation or will these developments spur Hamas to seek peace? I don’t know but the historical record of Palestinian leadership has never been one of stellar achievements. Oh well.

Seriously, I'd be a great replacement for Gilad Shalit!

It’s clear that even after three years in captivity, it’s unlikely that Hamas is going to let Gilad Shalit go any time soon. Some of the reasons for this, beyond the fact that Hamas are heartless motherfuckers, were succinctly elucidated by Guy Bechor in an opinion piece in YNet titled Hamas fears a swap. Bechor outlines 10 reasons why including the fact that Shalit is the only asset currently possessed by Hamas; Hamas’ Damascus based leadership doesn’t really want to release prisoners like the domestic Hamas leaders currently in prisons as well as Fatah’s Marwan Barghoutti, both of whom will challenge their control etc. etc. The bottom line is that Hamas needs an Israeli prisoner. But does it have to be Gilad Shalit?

I suggest that they let Gilad Shalit go. Three years without even a visit from the Red Cross is enough already. Instead, they can take me. By letting Gilad rejoin his friends and family, they can show what awesome humanitarians they are and by taking me, they can retain the advantages they have secured from kidnapping an Israeli. I think I’d be a pretty good hostage too! Like Shalit I hold dual citizenship, my Mom and sisters are sure to go batshit – crying for the camera and begging for my release while my Dad can present the stoic figure of a simple man thrust into the limelight, begging Israeli and world leaders to do what they can to secure my release. Unlike Shalit I can bide my time preparing excellent Tahini and Shakshuka for my captors and if Hamas wants to get really creative, they can allow me Internet access which will enable me to blog and tweet about how awful or awesome my captors are. But that’s entirely up to them. I’m willing to go with absolutely no preconditions. I’ll even bring a few cartons of Marlboro cigarettes as a humanitarian gift to my future captors who must be getting seriously raspy throats from all those nasty Egyptian Cleopatra cigarettes they’re forced to smoke because of Israel’s blockade. I’d really be an awesome hostage. Really. My lease expires September 15th and doing the swap by then would allow Shalit to rejoin his family in time for the holidays. I don’t have much going on right now, I’m not dating anyone and it might not be a bad idea to ride out the bad economic times in a Gaza prison as a guest of Hamas.

Now it’s entirely possible that some other reader of Jewlicious would make for a better hostage. If you think you’d be a superior replacement to Gilad Shalit, let me know! Send me a photo of you holding a “Dear Hamas, Take me!” sign and let me know why you’d make a better hostage and we’ll repost it here. If you convince me that you’re tougher and more congenial than me, I may even send you a free “I Love Hashem” t-shirt which I am sure would serve you really well in Gaza… REALLY well… Send all entries to jewlicious at gmail dot com and enter “Dear Hamas Take Me!” into the subject line.

I am a Zionist.

What that means on a very basic level is that I believe that the Jewish people have a right to self-determination, particularly in their historic homeland Israel and Judea. I believe in a vibrant democracy where a Jewish majority provides equal and fair status to any minorities who live in its midst. I believe that Jews have every right to have access to the Western Wall and also to what is behind it and under the mosques which the Muslim world have taken to calling the third most important site in Islam.

I do not believe that Israel should have religion as part of state law. It is a state for the nation of Jews not a religious state. While aspects of the religion should inform laws and lawmakers, they should not be the defining element in the authority of the government.

I wish for and dream of peace in a smaller Israel that does not have enemies.

I do not believe in war, although I believe in the right to self-defense and believe it is imperative to win any wars or battles decisively.

I believe that the wars that have been inflicted on Israel have given it the moral authority to exist and to remain in control of certain areas that are pertinent to its security. I include the Golan Heights and sections east of the Green Line in this equation. That does not mean that I rule out compromise over these areas, such as for example, giving the Syrians the Golan Heights but with an agreement to turn them into an international park for, say, 500 years.

I do not believe that I should lord it over the Palestinians, rule over them, tell them what they should or shouldn’t do, fight them or anything of the sort. I do not believe in ruling over another nation and in fact seek to not only separate from them but to enable the Palestinian nation to prosper and live in peace side by side a la Canada and the US.

I do not believe that holding Israel to a different standard than other nations is “anti-Zionism.” I believe it is an updated version of anti-Semitism where the small group that can get pushed around is pushed around and bullied. For example, Russia gets away with Chechnya, China gets away with Tibet, the EU and NATO get away with the Balkans, Turkey and Iraq get away with the Kurds, but somehow Israel is on the receiving end of biased censure from all of the above and many more for doing far less. It has become a ping pong ball at the UN, often in the hands of countries that are far less democratic and have human rights violations that stain their hands without the valid excuse Israel possesses that it is fighting an existential series of wars brought on by implacable enemies.

I write this in response to Antony Loewenstein who wrote an article today in Ha’aretz (yes, the newspaper whose publisher whispered in Condoleeza Rice’s ear that the US should rape Israel in order to bring about a resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict) entitled, Why aren’t Jews outraged by Israeli occupation?

In that article Loewenstein describes how criticism of Israel is becoming widespread, but he is focused on Jewish and particularly Jewish-American criticism of Israel. He brings examples of the criticism, quoting individuals such as Roger Cohen, who is probably writing another column right now about how wonderful it must be to be Jewish in that lovely and hospitable country Iran, as well as the criticism such critics of Israel receive.

“The decades-old ability of Zionist groups to manage the public narrative of Israeli victimhood is breaking down. Damning critics has therefore become a key method of control.

But, writes Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald, a leading Jewish-American blogger, “whereas these smear tactics once inspired fear in many people, now they just inspire pity. They no longer work.”

What does he mean by this?

Well, Loewenstein believes that the positive change which is washing over parts of American Jewry is that

“A thinking, more enlightened Judaism is emerging, a necessity in the face of apartheid realities. The cause is human rights, not Zionist exclusion.”

Holy cow, the guy just called me exclusionist. He accused me of supporting apartheid, of being unenlightened and of ignoring human rights.

He wants me to see this and he wants all American Jews to see this. “It’s a debate that is long overdue” he writes. He wants the Jewish American public to “See it as their duty to damn what is wrong and not simply support Israeli government policies.”

And in case we don’t understand where he’s coming from, he give us the Cole/Khalidi code for nasty Zionists, when he writes about Obama’s Cairo speech,

American Jews were certainly an intended audience because if it this group that must challenge their conservative spokespeople to undo years of following Likudnik thinking.

He even quotes the former Illinois senator who said once, “there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you’re anti-Israel and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel.”

And what are those pro-Likud Jews, nee Zionists, doing? They’re “willfully ignoring lawless behavior in the occupied territories.” He is pleased that the truth is found online on blogs that don’t “cling to the Exodus myths for dear life.”

Heck, he even quotes Phil Weiss whose website can only be described as a cesspool of Israel and even Jewish hatred. But Loewenstein doesn’t see it that way. To him, this is the face of,

A humane Judaism in the 21st century means condemning the brutal military occupation in the West Bank and resisting the ongoing siege of Gaza.

And, of course, he wants the “Palestinian narrative” not to be ignored or dismissed in the US. He wants the “Nakba” mentioned in the same breath as the Holocaust, or to put it into his clever reversal when he speaks of the ADL’s critical reaction to Obama bringing up the Holocaust in the same paragraph as the Palestinian suffering,

This was code for “Nakba”-denial, as pernicious as Holocaust revisionism.

Gosh, he even attended a parade in NYC where 100,000 American Jews celebrated Israel and was depressed because in the parade “Palestinians didn’t exist; they were invisible.”

And just to bring his point home, he concludes with,

But facts have an uncomfortable way of seeping back into view. Colonel Itai Virob, an IDF brigade commander in the West Bank, recently told an Israeli court that, “a slap, sometimes a punch to the scruff of the neck or the chest, sometimes a knee jab or strangulation to calm somebody [a Palestinian] down is reasonable.”

Where is the Jewish outrage over this?

Well Mr. Loewenstein, facts do have an uncomfortable way of seeping back into view. Let’s review some facts.

Fact: Virob was speaking about exceptional circumstances, not commonplace situations as this quote suggests. However, even so, within days in the most public forum he could muster, right in the Knesset building itself, the IDF Chief of Staff spoke clearly and definitively against any such practice.”"I will not tolerate any lack of clarity on this,” Ashkenazi told the Knesset committee. “IDF soldiers are not permitted to beat prisoners.” This article, in Ha’aretz, goes on to say that the IDF is considering a possible criminal investigation of Itai Virob.

A criminal investigation? Does that show outrage? The Chief of Staff making the illegality of such behavior beyond clear in a very public forum. Does that show outrage?

Oh, Mr. Loewenstein wants my outrage. I, as an American Jew should be outraged. Otherwise, I am a pro-Likud kinda bastard with inhumane and un-Jewish views leading Israel down a horrific alley.

Except that unlike Mr. Loewenstein, I am able to see both the negative and the positive in this situation. Being blindly critical of Israel isn’t humane and isn’t Jewish. It requires, in fact, willful blindness to the truth. In this case the truth is that even as a complex and difficult situation caused an officer and his soldiers to act, in extraordinary circumstances as the article states, in an unacceptable and violent manner, their Israeli society and their military stood up against it unequivocally and immediately.

Some more facts that Mr. Loewenstein neglects to mention: Israel has tried to get out of the “occupied territories.” Even if you put aside the compromises the Yishuv accepted in 1937 and 1947, you still have to look at Barak’s offers of 2000 and 2001 and Olmert’s offer of 2008. These were generous offers and offers that would have led to peace had the Palestinians accepted them.

Oh, did I mention the unilateral evacuation of Gaza? That led to a Hamas government and thousands of rockets landing on Israel.

How does Israel get out of the “occupied territories” without a peaceful partner? It can’t. How does Israel make life easier for the Palestinians when they use the avenues made available to them as opportunities to send terrorists into civilian Israeli centers with a mission to blow up and harm as many people as they can? It can’t.

How does Israel ignore the hostile voices from within that side with its enemies or speak in terms that are nothing less than anti-Semitic? It does. It allows them freedom of expression in the Knesset and in the streets and on university campuses.

How can Israel offer justice to its enemies when they explicitly call for its destruction and for the harming of its civilians? It does. The High Court provides a door to all comers, even if they are stateless Palestinians from the occupied territories.

How can Israel fight and win its wars while acting justly? It does. The efforts it makes to avoid civilian casualties place the IDF’s own troops in danger. It is not a “fact” to say, “look at the ratio of Israeli casualties to Palestinian casualties.” It is a fact to say, “They went in there and made the best effort they could to fight in a way that minimized civilian casualties. These were their marching orders and involved a substantial portion of their preparations both in attacking Gaza and Lebanon a couple of years earlier.”

Where is Loewenstein’s outrage that Israel is singled out among all the nations for actions that pale in comparison? Where is Loewenstein’s outrage that the Palestinians refuse to negotiate and accept the offers placed before them? Does he really think they deserve sovereignty over the holiest site in Judaism even as they negate the connection of the Jews to that site? Where is Loewenstein’s outrage that not a single Jew was permitted to remain in the occupied Jordanian West Bank and Jerusalem and that this bigoted, heinous 19 year blip in Jewish history and continued residence in places such as the Old City of Jerusalem should determine the fate of this center of Jewish life? Is a Gush Etzion settler really a settler? Why? Does east Jerusalem always have to remain Arab now? Why?

No, Mr. Loewenstein, Israel is a country in a very difficult and complex situation. It is struggling for survival even as it has to dedicate enormous resources to its own self-defense, even as its citizens are traumatized by violence that targets them and not their soldiers, even as its enemies refuse to come to the table to negotiate in good will (unless you think starting a war, launching terror attacks, running a nasty international PR campaign, and demanding sole possession of their opponent’s holiest sites are good will aspects of Palestinian negotiations). Israel is a vibrant democracy with a strong free press, a strong independent judiciary and a military that isn’t perfect but attempts to act ethically even as it fights unethical enemies (unless you think creating myths like the al-Dura shooting, writing charters based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, lobbing rockets into civilian communities and holding hostages for years and decades without even a single Red Cross visit is ethical).

Mr. Loewenstein, the outrage I feel is that you don’t see the enormity of your errors. That while you believe you are the epitome of “humane Judaism,” in fact you are the supporter of those who seek to destroy all that is good in Israel. And there is much good there, just as there are many, many flaws. It is a young country born in war and still fighting that war. The USA was once in similar straits and found its voice and its place. Israel has accomplished a great deal despite harsh challenges. Yet you want to convince us, that is American Jews, and of course the non-Jews who are listening, that the war that engulfs Israel doesn’t matter, that the Palestinian refusal to negotiate in good faith doesn’t matter, that decades of terrorism don’t matter and that offers of co-existence don’t matter.

Well, they do matter. The facts are difficult to accept because we all want the presence of Israeli soldiers in Arab areas to end. But some of us understand that the soldiers are there because there is no other choice and when you turn them into monsters, falsely I might add, you weaken them and the promise of what Israel could become.

Some relevant Jewlicious links:

Leaving the West Bank

Israel After Gaza

Ehud Olmert Corrects the Record

Abbas Confirms Olmert gave an Insanely Generous Offer

The loonie Jewish extreme Left rears its ugly head on Holocaust Remembrance Day

An ugly tide

PLO, AKA the Palestinian Authority, has not changed its platform

“Olmert’s like a woman who is dying to get married, but is afraid of becoming pregnant”

Back to Taba

Abbas ignores 60 years of history and kisses Annapolis bye bye

Not with a bang but a thud

An Extremely Important Editorial about Sderot and the Palestinians’ Attacks on the Town

My Little Six Day War 40th Anniversary Post

By the way, I don’t support the Likud.

Okay, so maybe there’s some hostility towards Jews at university campuses across Canada, and maybe “Israel Apartheid Week” is spreading like a cancer through those cold provinces, and maybe Canada has let in half of the Muslim Middle East as immigrants over the past twenty years so that in a short time the Muslim population of Toronto alone is larger than Canada’s entire Jewish population. Maybe.

But, those Canadians are showing the kind of moral fiber that not many others are willing to show. For this we have the Harper government to thank.

For instance, Durban II is coming up and until recently Israel was on the menu as the sole dish for the international community to devour. But Canada has steadfastly refused to attend. Even when the US sent a trial balloon by sending over a delegation from the State Dept., the Canadians did not budge from their boycott. That’s courageous and highly ethical!

What else is great about Canada, other than its entire West Coast? Those Canucks gave the world basketball!

And the telephone!

And Irwin Cotler! The man is Jewlicious great. One of the world’s leading authorities on international law and a former Minister of Justice for those amazing Canadians, he makes Alan Dershowitz wish he were Canadian too.

You know who else? Alanis Morissette and Second City are Canadian. So is NEIL YOUNG! And Bruce Cockburn! And the Barenaked Ladies.

That’s right, Canada produced the Barenaked Ladies!

Well, even so, today Canada outdid itself.

Yes, today, Canada’s judiciary agreed with its politicians that terrorist sympathizers are unwelcome and may not come to this lovely land.

A judge declined Monday to overturn a Canadian government ruling that bans an outspoken anti-Israel British lawmaker from entering the country.

Canada banned George Galloway on national security grounds earlier in March, saying he provided money to Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization in Canada.
…
Earlier in March, Galloway was awarded an honorary Palestinian passport in a secret meeting with the Hamas prime minister. Ismail Haniyeh’s office released a photo of the two men embracing.

…

A spokesman for Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said that Canadian border officials made the decision on grounds Galloway was a national security threat. Spokesman Alykhan Velshi said the government declined to overturn the decision because of Galloway’s financial support for Hamas.

In a letter to Galloway, the government said the lawmaker delivered humanitarian goods to war-torn Gaza and gave US$45,000 to Hamas.

Martineau said in a written ruling that he’s not willing to exempt Galloway from Canada’s Immigrations laws.

That’s right, Canada is not only a land of beautiful women (and men, but who cares), but in Canada, if you hug a terrorist, you are out on your ass because that’s just like, uh, sorta like, um, ah, hmmm, I know! It’s like lying in bed with a murderer and smiling for the photo op “Oh Ismayil, you launch such beautiful rockets.” “Why thank you George, and your soft beard gives me great pleasure as well.”

Those Canadians won’t put up with that sort of crap. Uh uh. Not in Alberta, or Nova Scotia. Not in Banff or Vancouver Island. Not in Algonquin Park and not in Niagara Falls. That’s right, nowhere in Canada, not even in Quebec, will they let terrorist huggers in to give lectures to people lest those folks also become terrorist huggers.

Actually, it’s not even because of that. It’s just BECAUSE.

Here are some Barenaked Ladies. Dance along kids!