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OPINION & EDITORIAL

Zionists disregard human rights

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Also by Mohammed Abed:

Israeli plan actually hurts Palestinians (September 8, 2005)
Conservative ideology failed victims (September 15, 2005)
Local front of war on women's rights (September 22, 2005)
Case for divesting from Israeli interests (September 30, 2005)
Columbus anything but a national hero (October 13, 2005)

by Mohammed Abed

Friday, March 4, 2005

The Palestinian rap group DAM has a song called “Who is a Terrorist” (Meen Erhabe). Arguably its most poignant and topical line says, “I’m not against peace/peace is against me.” These few words perfectly encapsulate the current situation in Palestine.

The mainstream Zionist movement has once again deployed its consummate propaganda skills to mask basic realities about Israel and its treatment of the Palestinian people with talk of “peace” and “painful concessions.” While Israel continues to terrorize the Palestinians, while it expropriates more of their land and continues to outdo apartheid-era South Africa in the extent of its institutionalized racism, the international community once again falls prey to the illusion of a “peace process” that may end the relentless abuse of the Palestinians.

Fearing the rise of a global grassroots movement to pressure Israel into obeying the law of nations through boycott and divestiture, the pro-Israel camp’s constant refrain in recent times has been “why divest now when there is a peace process?” The implication is that divestment is driven by something other than a concern for the human rights of both Israelis and Palestinians and the hope that both peoples may one day live at peace in their shared homeland. “Anti-Semitism” is an oft-cited motive, while UW’s own Regent President Toby Marcovich prefers the disingenuous “we don’t divest on a political basis” or we only divest “if there are true human-rights violations.”

All this begs the obvious question: if “peace” is just around the corner, then what could possibly be prompting the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the National Lawyers Guild, Pax Christi (N.Z.) and most recently the World Council of Churches to pursue divestment other than the reasons cited by Marcovich and the pro-Israel propaganda apparatus. The reality behind the current façade of “peace” may illustrate why divestment is being pursued by these groups and by the University of Wisconsin campaign to divest from Israel.

Since Nov. 1, 2004, Israeli forces, using weaponry supplied by companies in which this University is invested, killed 170 innocent Palestinian men, women and children and injured or maimed 379 before a suicide bomber “shattered a months-long period of relative calm” according to the Los Angeles Times Twenty-five of these deaths occurred after Israel agreed to the recent cease-fire with the Palestinians at the Egyptian resort town of Sharm al-Sheikh (Karma Nabulsi in The Guardian 3/1/05) In one day, Israeli forces murdered a 15-year-old boy and seriously wounded his friend in the Ramallah area and then extra-judicially assassinated two men in Nablus.

Would Regent Marcovich claim that these and thousands of other independently documented murders of innocent Palestinians are not “true human-rights violations?” Perhaps Regent Marcovich can explain this point further. Is there a moral distinction between the murder of a Palestinian and that of an Israeli? Or can we only have a true human-rights violation when the rights of a human are violated rather than a Palestinian untermensch? Or perhaps the deaths of over 4000 innocent Palestinians since the start of the current uprising were foreseen but not intended, so Marcovich can go about his day with a clear conscience. No doubt, attempting to draw the Regent’s attention to these violations smacks of “political motivations.”

The killings are the mere tip of the iceberg. The Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot, quoting the Israel lands authority, reports there are plans to build 6000 new homes in existing West Bank apartheid colonies, in part to accommodate colonists forced to leave Gaza, an area where the presence of too many non-Jews makes Israel’s project of racially exclusive settlement non-viable. In the Jerusalem region, the Israeli government recently attempted to resurrect the notorious absentee property law to give a legal face to the forced expropriation of Palestinian lands detached from their owners by the segregation wall that was recently ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice. In 1948, after Israeli forces ruthlessly uprooted 800,000 Palestinians from their homes and sent them into exile, the absentee property law was invoked to “legitimize” the theft of their lands, all of which were subsequently allotted for the exclusive use of the Jewish people.

Perhaps Marcovich and his supporters could explain in what sense all these examples fail to qualify as “true human-rights violations?” Even if the Palestinians are “filthy animals” as Don Imus recently opined on MSNBC, this would not justify abusing, torturing, and killing them with impunity.

Mohammed Abed is a Palestinian Graduate Student in the Department of Philosophy at UW-Madison. He is also an organizer with the Wisconsin Divest from Israel Campaign.

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Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 3:16am):

Turn off the CD player and think for yourself.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 8:00am):

I'm sorry, Zionists disregard human rights? How about the terrorist son-of-a-bitch who blew himself up outside a Tel Aviv nightclub last week? Is that not a violation of human rights? And yet, Mohammed, you implicitly applaud bombers like that!

When the rappers say "I'm not against peace/peace is against me," isn't it possible that peace is against them because peace requires them to stop supporting genocidal terrorism?

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 8:16am):

"Ceasefire" must be an Arabic word that means "reloading". It certainly doesn't mean that Palestinians stop their deliberate attacks on civilians. Of course, if any terrorist is killed in the process, then murderous anti-Semites like Mohammed Abed will cry that Palestinian rights are being violated. Divest from the Jews, before they defend themselves again!

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 8:37am):

Mohammed, don't pretend to be among the Palestinian suffering. You are a British social elite who has never once lived with the Palestinians. You're a propaganda spreading brat.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 9:08am):

Looks like it's about time to not read the badger herald anymore. Everytime I see an article my Mohammed or Fayyad I am putting it back on the rack.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 9:16am):

"In 1948, after Israeli forces ruthlessly uprooted 800,000 Palestinians from their homes"

Wasn't it their Arab brothers who convinced them to leave so as not to be in the way of their war of annihilation? Weren't they convinced it was just a temporary move, until all the Jews were killed? Aren't they still trying to kill all the Jews?

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 9:21am):

I can tell by your respond that you put the Herald on the rack! SO what are you doing here???

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 9:29am):

Seriously, can the Herald please institute a policy to only discuss Israel/Palestine twice a semester or so? I wish these articles added to the debate on campus, but they never do. Ever. It's the same old crap with mean people on both sides who hate each other and refuse to recognize their own flaws.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 9:31am):

Mohammed- Even if by chance a few cowardly schools divest themselves from the multinational corporations in question, you can rest assured that the US government will never under any circumstances allow Israel to succumb to your terrorist brothers.

Perhaps instead of worrying about divesting, you should worry about investing in the people you claim to care about. You are right to feel defensive and ashamed about the accomplishments of tiny Israel as compared to the entire Arab speaking world, but instead of lashing out, why don't you implore your people to work?

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 9:37am):

I would like to contrast the lyrics from the Palestinian rap group DAM with those of Li'l John in the song "CULO" when he said:

"feel me, let me see you do that dirty dance, dirty dance mami / feel me, let me see you touch your toes or shake that thang and talk with your ass / feel me all my chicos, all my jamaicans, all my blacks, all my haitians / feel me cause they know im gonna run till they kill me"

I think what he is trying to say here is STOP BLOWING UP BUSES.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 9:37am):

http://www.petitiononline.com/sf101584/petition.html

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 9:57am):

Ah, I see Fayyad now has a tag-team partner. With 60-plus posts to his column yesterday, I guess he figured he couldn't stand alone. What a wimp!

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 10:04am):

I love reading their articles!! Keep up the good work. Both of you!!
It is fun reading stupid peoples responses as well. I did not know we had that many slow and disqualified students in Madison. UW- Madison needs to become more selective in processing applications for admission. We have too many of them struggling in comprehending these great articles.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 10:13am):

"disqualified?"

Pot to kettle, pot to kettle. Come in kettle.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 10:13am):

Wait, there are palestinian rappers? i couldn't read the rest of the article, i was laughing too much... that was enough for me!

I still hate fat chicks

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 10:16am):

I learned something today. American= Jealous! They cannot stand international intelligence by any means.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 10:20am):

"struggling in comprehending these great articles"

What's to comprehend? It's simple propaganda:

Palestinian = good
Israeli = bad

Drive the Jews into the sea is the solution, that they resist is the only problem.

ps. Most land titles are, at bottom, "by right of conquest" (like Britain and the Normans, or Hungary and the Huns).

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 10:21am):

Palestinian rappers? Hey, what about those Palestinian baseball pitchers I've heard so much about over the years?

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 10:36am):

Mohammed, the readers are actually poking fun at you and Fayyad because they are tired of your non-stop exhortations that we American college students waste our time caring about a bunch of down-and-out losers halfway around the world that most of the Arab world doesn't care about either. I'm talking the Palestinians, of course, the same little shits who cheered the Sept. 11 attacks.

Give me one good reason why any American should care about what happens to a bunch of "poor, oppressed" assholes, who asked for everything the Israelis did to them. You never once in your article provided one shred of evidence to substantiate you argument. And when you and Fayyad do provide evidence, it's always a link to a website that is clearly biased.

We don't care because we don't have to. And that doesn't make us any less human, it just means that we have the right to place our sympathy and support where we feel it is most needed.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 10:43am):

Tag Team back again...

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 10:50am):

Why can't we hear about Syria and Lebannon? That sounds like a much more pertinent issue in world events right now.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 10:51am):

"Wasn't it their Arab brothers who convinced them to leave so as not to be in the way of their war of annihilation? Weren't they convinced it was just a temporary move, until all the Jews were killed? Aren't they still trying to kill all the Jews?"

In no particular order, the answers to your questions are yes, yes, and yes.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 10:52am):

"Propaganda" you are the one who enjoys innovating misleading information and creating a party line. They never produced or stated a specific party line.
The only thing that attracts American mind is simple propaganda. That's their maximum limit of considering and understanding global issues.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 10:58am):

If you hate this article, sign the petition

http://www.petitiononline.com/sf101584/petition.html

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 11:08am):

"If you hate this article, sign the petition
http://www.petitiononline.com/sf101584/petition.html"

Please. If you hate this article, then WRITE YOUR OWN. This is the opinion section, and Mohammed wrote his opinion. If YOU want your opinion heard, then contact the Herald about writing your own.

While I think that Mohammed's position here is ludicrous, I value reading it to know where he and people like him are coming from. How can you argue with those you disagree with if you don't know their position?

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 11:13am):

It's one thing to have an opinion, it's another thing to spread Mein Kampf disguised as humanitarianism

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 11:13am):

"How can you argue with those you disagree with if you don't know their position?"

We know his position. That's why we're disagreeing with him.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 11:25am):

"The only thing that attracts American mind is simple propaganda. That's their maximum limit of considering and understanding global issues."

To the contrary! You must not confuse drunken, shallow-minded rednecks with well-educated Americans. We do understand world issues. Just because we disagree with your position on one or more issues does not mean that we don't understand.

Honestly, we'd like it very much if you would simply find some other way of occupying yourself besides harrassing those who think as they choose. Or, to put it more succinctly, We'd like you to FUCK OFF!!!

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 11:28am):

"We know his position. That's why we're disagreeing with him."

I'm talking about the poster who advocated boycotting the Herald because it prints material they disagree with, instead of constructively debating it.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 11:57am):

"I'm talking about the poster who advocated boycotting the Herald because it prints material they disagree with, instead of constructively debating it."

We're tired of debating. We're also tired of idiots like you. That's why we make fun of you.That's also why we advocate boycotting The Badger Herald. They suck. They totally suck. The Palestinians suck. Maybe that's why they never have anything new or intelligent to say, because there's too much sucking going on. Their brains are getting sucked right out of their heads.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 12:24pm):

'Mohammed, don't pretend to be among the Palestinian suffering. You are a British social elite who has never once lived with the Palestinians. You're a propaganda spreading brat.'

Actually, I know him. His family was expelled from Palestine in 48 and then lived in refugee camps like all the other Palestinians who had their homes and land stolen. None of these people were ever allowed to return. This might explain why his stateless family did what they could do and eventually found their way to Britain. He still has family in the West Bank and Gaza but can't visit them. British social elite! he probably wishes!

Why don't you address the arguments he makes instead of attacking him as a person? If you think you are justified in your views, then please address his arguments. Otherwise, any rational person will simply assume you having nothing of substance to say. This goes for all the people attacking him personally.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 12:39pm):

"Why don't you address the arguments he makes instead of attacking him as a person?"

What do you think he's doing when he equates Zionism with racism? Don't you think he's attacking anyone personally, namely Israelis and Jews who only want a place where they can live without fear of genocide?

If he can't take it then maybe he shouldn't dish it out. Fair is fair.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 12:40pm):

Yeah, the only thing getting in the way of the Palestinians and piece are those couple million heathens who won't just let themselves be driven into the sea already! The bastards...

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 12:40pm):

Why are you bringing up his personal life. That is no one's business. It is not our business to dig in someone's personal life.
Get to know your self fist. He has a family and good for him.
God knows what your background is?

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 1:01pm):

"Yeah, the only thing getting in the way of the Palestinians and piece..."

Piece of what? Did you mean "peace"?

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 1:01pm):

"Get to know your self fist."

WTF you doin with your fist?

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 1:09pm):

"Looks like it's about time to not read the badger herald anymore. Everytime I see an article my Mohammed or Fayyad I am putting it back on the rack."

Well no shit. Of course a narrow-minded prick like you would not want to see anything but pro-Israeli bull shit.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 1:11pm):

"I think what he is trying to say here is STOP BLOWING UP BUSES."

And I say, STOP SHOOTING CIVILIANS.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 1:15pm):

I come from a family of laborers. I have no criminal record, I do not pick my nose, I wear clean underwear, I have a few hundred in the bank, I had only one cavity at my last check-up and I don't fart in class. It is, therefore, that I am morally upstanding enough to criticize Mohammed's anti-Zionist view. I think he is a douchebag and he will never graduate on time, let alone at all. I believe he is totally biased against Jews and Israel's right to exist, and he should get no nookie because of that.

Shame on him. He is evil. He is an apostate of Hell and should be forcibly returned to the bowels of the Earth immediately. He and his minions have festered on the surface for far too long. Be gone from our midst, O vile one! Ye hath no rightful place among righteous mortals! Thou art but a vile, putrid stench which must be purged! Cursed are thee, for thou hast spoken blasphemy of thy neighbor to all humanity. By sword and by gall he hath swayed the multitudes with putrid and vile speech, he speaketh lies and deceit to all with ears to hear.

Turn all ye away from his baseless and scornful diatribes, for he is indeed a liar. A liar! Smite him down and damn him, for his only refuge is the naivete of those unaware of his true nature. Let him not triumph! Banish him! BANISH HIM!!

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 1:16pm):

"To the contrary! You must not confuse drunken, shallow-minded rednecks with well-educated Americans."

And then you go on to say

" We'd like you to FUCK OFF!!!"

You don't strike me as an educated American. That's simply redneck quality that indicates you're not civil enough to engage in clean discourse.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 1:18pm):

"We're tired of debating. We're also tired of idiots like you. That's why we make fun of you."

No, you make fun of us because you have nothing better to say. Grow up.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 1:19pm):

you pro israeli kids are funny.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 1:22pm):

"And I say, STOP SHOOTING CIVILIANS."

The Israelis aren't aiming at civilians, they try to minimize harm to civilians, unlike the Palestinians whose main objective is to kill and maim as many civilians as possible.

Maybe the Palestinian terroists should stop using civilians as shields?

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 1:24pm):

"I believe he is totally biased against Jews and Israel's right to exist, and he should get no nookie because of that."

And what are you? Do you want to tell me you're not biased against the Palestinians getting a portion of the land that was stolen from them, or having the liberty for once to control their own affairs?

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 1:27pm):

"Maybe the Palestinian terroists should stop using civilians as shields?"

Been watching Fox news lately?

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 1:37pm):

wow... 33 worthless posts.

i never once saw anyone refute a specific point in his article.

the entire counter-argument was pretty much "i hate those fucking palestinians and arabs" and "stop blowing up buses." in fact, i doubt that any of you read more than the first 2 paragraphs before posting, based on the responses.

i will grant that his article is biased. but why should we not welcome this side of the debate, especially since most of the campus is biased the other way?

someone said "stop blowing up buses." palestinians are forced to make crude bombs out of cars and themselves. look at what israel has though. fighter jets, American-made missiles, lots of higher-tech weapons in general. you act surprised that people would fight back when their homes are systematically destroyed. and look at who is doing the fighting. on one side, you do have poor palestinians, working on their own or loosely organized through an NGO. on the other, you have AN INTERNATIONAL STATE. who is taking part in TERRORISM. yes, both sides are taking part in terrorist activities.

i'm not saying that israel started it. i am also not saying that palestinians started it. shit is how it is right now, and the only way to stop the current situation is to stop assigning blame, get over ourselves, and work out a plan that everyone can be happy with.

seriously though, look at how one-sided each of your arguments are, because this is not a one-sided war.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 1:42pm):

Israel wants the Palestinians to have a portion of the land even though that portion was originally Jordan and the reason the Palestinian portion doesnt exist right now is because the Arabs decided to surround Israel and eliminate the Jewish contamination of the land. The reason the Palestinians don't have a portion of the land right now is because they rejected Barak's offer, and they rejected Rabin's offer.
The Palestinians don't want a portion, they want everything.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 1:43pm):

"Well no shit. Of course a narrow-minded prick like you would not want to see anything but pro-Israeli bull shit."

And a dickless shit like you would not want to see anything but pro-terrorist and pro-Palestinian bullshit.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 1:52pm):

It's idiotic to deny that the Palestinians use human shields. They boast of it.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 1:56pm):

You guys need to put the Haterade back in the refrigerator.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 2:05pm):

My opnion is that I don't have to care about the stupid Arabs if I don't want to. And just what are you pro-terrorist liberal shitheads gonna do about it? Call me names? Boycott my posts? Ha-ha! Hey, do whatever you want, I'll just sit here and laugh at you. And then I'll post some more. If you fly off the handle that easily then I'm gonna have some fun with it.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 2:07pm):

"" We'd like you to FUCK OFF!!!"

You don't strike me as an educated American. That's simply redneck quality that indicates you're not civil enough to engage in clean discourse."

Hey, you don't strike me as particularly educated either, dimwit. After all, you did take the time to respond to the guy.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 2:08pm):

"...you act surprised that people would fight back when their homes are systematically destroyed."

Seems that they're not exactly "fighting back", as the homes are destroyed AFTER the Israeli civilians are killed by the Palestinian bombs.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 2:10pm):

"The reason the Palestinians don't have a portion of the land right now is because they rejected Barak's offer, and they rejected Rabin's offer.
The Palestinians don't want a portion, they want everything."

Which is another good reason not to give a f@&* about the Palestinians. They're never satisfied.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 2:14pm):

To "33 worthless posts"...

THANK YOU!!!! Finally there's someone else who's willing to state that BOTH sides are to blame here.

Why hasn't there been lasting peace? Because of all of you out there who can't stop sticking cheap shots on each other. Because no one is willing to admit that maybe their side is wrong. Because maybe...just maybe (heaven forbid)...adults preaching bloody murder against each other breed kids who preach bloody murder against each other, and nothing gets resolved.

Sadly, this is not some stupid issue that we should stop caring about. People are dying because of this issue, and that makes it necessary to confront. I just think if you all are going to keep screaming at each other mindlessly without seeing the crimes in your own side, this will never end.

Am I putting the blood on your hands? Maybe. But for God's sake (Both Jehovah and Allah), this shit has to stop. Quit the sabre rattling and please stand down, all of you.

-William Northend

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 2:26pm):

Arafat is dead. He never wanted peace. We will see some real progress in the next year if outside influences (Hamas, etc.) don't interfere. Abbas seems like a good man who actually wants to accomplish something. Give him a chance.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 3:20pm):

"Why hasn't there been lasting peace? Because of all of you out there who can't stop sticking cheap shots on each other."

Kid, I really doubt that the Israelis or the Palestinians even read The Badger Herald. Another thing: people don't stick cheap shots on each other, they TAKE cheap shots AT each other. What a goofball!

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 3:23pm):

Why does everyone lash out at the Israelis and never at those wacko Muslim clerics who brainwash Palestinians into blowing themselves up? Wouldn't it make sense to attack them too? Don't you all think that they should share the blame? I'd be very interested in hearing someone address that issue for once. Anyone?

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 3:24pm):

"Do you want to tell me you're not biased against the Palestinians getting a portion of the land that was stolen from them, or having the liberty for once to control their own affairs?"

Stolen from them? Not hardly! The Israelis had at least as great a claim to the land as the Palestinians, if not more, when the UN Partition Plan was approved in 1947. In fact, in 1947, there was no "Palestinian" national group -- only Jordanians. And in any case, after the Israelis agreed to share the land, five Arab armies launched a war to murder them all. It was during that war that the Arab armies called on the people who are now known as Palestinians to abandon their homes, under the logic that once they had murdered every Jews in the land, they would be able to return home and steal the Jews' property. When Israel fought back IN SELF-DEFENSE and won the war, they conquered some land. When Israel was attacked again in 1956, 1967, and 1973, it again fought back IN SELF-DEFENSE and conquered more land.

If that makes the land "stolen" in your eyes, I really don't understand how you can justify living in Wisconsin, where the land definitely was stolen in a series of aggressive acts (and not in self-defense) from Native Americans.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 3:25pm):

"Abbas seems like a good man who actually wants to accomplish something. Give him a chance."

Well just who has said anything bad about him? I haven't heard anyone say anything negative about the man. I don't hear any Israelis bad-mouthing him. What's your point?

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 3:28pm):

The answer to the Palestinian situation is simple: people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 3:30pm):

"We don't care because we don't have to. And that doesn't make us any less human, it just means that we have the right to place our sympathy and support where we feel it is most needed."

It is your school - run with your tuitions and your taxes - being accused of indirectly supporting the unlawful demolition of homes and killing of innocent people. That's why you have to care. That's why there has to be a debate in the community to shape the policy of the institutions. That's why you have an opinion section in your newspaper.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 3:34pm):

"...the land that was stolen from them,"

In the Middle East ALL the land worth living on was "stolen" from somebody. At bottom most land titles are by "right of conquest".

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 3:39pm):

It is Mohammad Abed who is against the peace process, not the Zionists. Would a Zionist leader who is anti-peace be pushing to get to the negotiating table and withdrawing thousands of people from the territories? I don't think so. The only people who are anti-peace are people like Mohammad Abed, who want to destroy Israel and create a greater Palestine. Luckily, Mohammad will never hold any political power. As far as I'm concerned, he can stay locked up in his ivory tower and pose fictions and ideas that have no feasibility in the real world.

Ben Herman

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 3:40pm):

You can view the rap song meen Erhabi here,
http://www.jsalloum.org/videos.html

Also, check out http://www.slingshothiphop.com/ and view the trailer.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 3:46pm):

Also, a definition as to what the word Zionist means. A Zionist is someone who believes in a Jewish homeland. Most Zionists throughout history have been fine living next to Arabs--if this was not the case, the Partition Plan of 1947 would not have been accepted by them. If you read Ahad Ha-Am, Martin Buber and Benny Morris, you find a great concern for the rights of the Arab people. Except for a radical minority, the Zionists today affirm these rights and support a two-state solution.

The vast majority of Palestinian Arabs also affirm the right for a Jewish/Zionist state to exist. The few radical ones who don't, like Mohmmad, want complete Arab hegemony in the Middle East and should not be taken seriously. I am happy that these groups are not the ones who are at the negotiating table.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 3:46pm):

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 4:37pm):

Dear Ben,

Thank you for your thoughtful comments. You will however notice that I said the 'mainstream Zionist movement.' There are brave and courageous people like Hannah Arendt, Martin Buber, Rabbi Judah Magnes and others who considered themselves Zionist and stood behind the aspirations of the Jewish people for a homeland. However, they also conceived of a Jewish homeland as a space for the spiritual and cultural revival of the Jewish people not necessarily as a Jewish nation-state. People like Arendt realized the necessity of working in partnership with the indigenous Arab population in Palestine. They knew that a state requiring ethnic homogeneity would lead to the dispossession of the Palestinians and that this would in turn fuel a conflict that would benefit neither party. As a result, Arendt advocated a Jewish-Arab Bi-National State in historical Palestine. I myself think this is the only way to resolve the conflict, the only way for Israelis and Palestinians to have a better life in the long-run. I've said this and written it countless times in public. Perhaps you missed that.

You may have also missed the fact that in my article I say: 'The implication is that divestment is driven by something other than a concern for the human rights of both Israelis and Palestinians and the hope that both peoples may one day live at peace in their shared homeland.' It is therefore clear that I'm in favour of Israeli human rights and in favour of a shared homeland. Please read the article more carefully next time before accusing me of advocating the removal of Israelis and the establishment of a Palestinian Arab State from 'the river to the sea.'

Also, you may want to take note that most Palestinians still support the right of the refugees to return to the homeland they were uprooted from in 1948. This does not need to imply that they reject a Jewish homeland in Palestine (see Arendt) but it does mean that they question the idea that Israel ought to remain an exclusively Jewish State rather than a multi-cultural Palestinian/Israeli state. The fact that I question the exclusive nature of Israel does not imply (at least if one is rational and level-headed) that I advocate complete Palestinian dominance over the whole land. I do not want to impose minority status on Israelis since this is precisely the conditions that the Jewish people wanted to escape.

Mainstream Zionism is the ideology that left no place for the Palestinians in Palestine. It is the ideology that was translated into a program of ethnic cleansing in 1948 and its the same ideology that makes people think that because a few settlers go from one illegal colony in Gaza to another illegal colony in the West Bank, the Palestinians should shut up and be happy. So, Sharon has decided to withdraw to the perimeter of the Gaza prison. Israel will still control Palestinian airspace, ports, borders and everything else that Palestinians need to control to be truly independent. I don't think Arendt or Magnes would think this was real justice, so please don't use their names and legacy in an instrumental manner.

Finally, I'm sure its very difficult for you to deal with the fact that a people who have been utterly decimated and tortured throughout their existence (the Jewish people) are now abusing another (the Palestinians). This is difficult and perplexing, but ought it lead you or any of the other people commenting on my article to engage in baseless ad hominem attacks on either Fayyad or myself? Is it not the case that this kind of attitude is completely at odds with civil dialogue? If you disagree with me, then please, by all means address the arguments I make. Go find some evidence, check your facts, and don't conflate issues and idea that are obviously distinct.

Sincerely to all of you,

Mohammed Abed

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 4:52pm):

P.S.,

The Original Title of this article was 'Board of Regents Acquiesce to Israeli Terror.' It was then changed by the op-ed editors at the Badger Herald.

Mohammed Abed

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 4:53pm):

"inally, I'm sure its very difficult for you to deal with the fact that a people who have been utterly decimated and tortured throughout their existence (the Jewish people) are now abusing another (the Palestinians)."

Mo, don't even try to compare the suffering of the Palestinians to the suffering of the Jews in Europe. THere is NO comparison. None at all. None at all.
Concentration camps where there was forced starvation, labor and abuse in preparation of being moved into the gas chambers (50,000 people per day) does not compare to impoverished Palestinians who were no better off before the Jews were there.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 5:01pm):

"The implication is that divestment is driven by something other than a concern for the human rights of both Israelis and Palestinians and the hope that both peoples may one day live at peace in their shared homeland."

Oh yeah, Mohammed, there must be some kind of profit motive to keep the poor pitiful Palestinians fenced in. If you read anything about history in the Middle-East, you'd know that there was certainly a profit motive on the part of Britain to help the Arabs prevent a Jewish state. They wanted to keep that cheap oil flowing. Fortunately, other countries, namely the U.S. and Czheckoslovakia, decided "No friggin' way, chaps!" and sent all the military aid they could to Israel.

If you think that greed is the underlying cause of this "persecution" that your people are experiencing, then maybe you need to stop being selective about what historical trends or events you use to make your point. You'd certainly find that the greed is not on the Israeli side. It is YOUR facts that need checking, my friend.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 5:10pm):

"Finally, I'm sure its very difficult for you to deal with the fact that a people who have been utterly decimated and tortured throughout their existence (the Jewish people) are now abusing another (the Palestinians)."

It's probably more difficult for Jews to deal with the fact that they are subject to terrorist attacks.

From reading some on the subject, it is my humble conclusion that there is no way to placate many violent Palestinian organizations other than Israel's utter destruction. If the Israelis cede land and the Palestinians do nothing to quell their own violent factions themselves, the Jewish people will have simply given away land for fleeting peace of mind.

The success of the peace process requires making concessions, something that, to the best of my knowledge, the violent Palestinian factions won't make. Up until now, the Palestinian leadership has been rather ineffective in reining in these groups terrorist activities. If these groups are allowed to operate unrestrained, you just can't have peace.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 5:24pm):

The Peculiar Institution: Understanding Why Palestinian Terror Is Different

By Lee Harris
Published
02/28/2005

1. THE PALESTINIANS' MOMENT OF TRUTH

The Palestinian people stand at a critical moment in their history. They can
rally behind the efforts of their new leader, Mahmoud Abbas, to bring an end
to the Palestinian tradition of terror, or they can continue to give their
support to those who are pursuing a fatal and futile fantasy -- a fantasy
that has cost the lives of thousands of innocent men, women, and children,
both Israelis and Palestinians.

The fantasy in question is the fantasy that one day the so called "Zionist
occupation" will end. And the reason it is a fantasy can be easily detected
in the phrase "the Zionist occupation."

The state of Israel has long since ceased to be a Zionist project. Like it
or not, Israel is a historical fait accompli, a state as real and genuine as
any that has ever existed in history. If the Israeli people could have been
run out of the area, they would have left long ago. Those who are there are
seriously there. They aren't leaving in the future. That is why the
Palestinian people have only one realistic choice before them: they must
work in every way possible to eliminate the terror virus that was permitted
to spread among them under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, especially now
when the Palestinians at long last appear to have a leader who is trying to
bring an end to Palestine's reign of terror.

Terrorism is a Palestinian tradition that must end. But in order to bring
about this desperately needed change, not only must the Palestinian people
cease to show sympathy with their indigenous terrorist organizations, so too
must Westerners, both in Europe and in the United States. Sympathy with the
Palestinian people is in order, but not sympathy for the institution that
has held them back from all progress toward a genuinely responsible civic
polity.

For that is what terrorism has become among the Palestinians -- it is their
peculiar institution, the way slavery was the peculiar institution of the
American South in the nineteenth century. For, like the slave system,
terrorism, deployed as a means of achieving political goals, ends by
poisoning the society that permits it to flourish in its midst. The only
group that draws any advantage from its use are those who are ruthless
enough to use it. Like slavery, it corrupts whatever it touches, and is of
value only to those who live off it. Like slavery, it appears to be an
institution that can only be destroyed by those who are willing to use
extreme and drastic measures to eradicate it. And, lastly, like American
slavery, Palestinian terrorism has its defenders, many of them decent and
well-intentioned individuals. In what follows I will try to explain why
these individuals are mistaken in extending their sympathy to organizations
like Hamas and other "militant" Palestinian groups.

2. CANT IN DEFENSE OF TERRORISM

Samuel Johnson once remarked, in a moment of irritation, "I will have no
cant in defense of savagery." Well, if he had lived today, he would have had
to put up with something even worse than cant in defense of savagery, and
that is cant in defense of terrorism. But what would have been guaranteed to
push him beyond the limits of his patience would have been the Western
school of cant that, for over a half century, has been employed to defend
and apologize for one particularly brutal, pointless, and politically
self-defeating forms of terrorism: Palestinian terrorism.

What makes Palestinian terror uniquely privileged among all other forms of
terror, even among those people who find other form of terrorism
unacceptable? And why do so many well-meaning people in the West observe a
double standard when it comes to the terrorism used by the Palestinians and
the terrorism used by al Qaeda?

That such a double standard exists is hardly a matter of dispute. The Bush
administration proved this point some time back by its condemnation of the
Israeli government's killing of the Hamas leader, a man whose life had been
dedicated to perfecting terrorism as a weapon to be used against innocent
Israeli men, women, and children. And where the Bush administration condemns
an Israeli action, it is fairly easy to imagine what the rest of the world's
attitude on such a question would be.

What accounts for this?

To attempt to provide the answer to this question, I have identified three
distinct sources of cant in defense of Palestinian terrorism, each of which
may be summed up in the stock phrases that usually spring to the lips of
those who are engaged in the process of defending or apologizing for
Palestinian terrorism. They are:

(1) The "cycle of violence"

(2) The "legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people"

(3) The "Zionist occupation"

My reason for spending so much time dissecting the cant surrounding
Palestinian terror is simple. I am convinced that the West shares much, if
not most, of the blame for the most startling fact of our epoch, namely, the
political triumph of Islamic terrorism.

If the word "triumph" sounds premature or alarmist, ask yourself what nation
state has had the impact on the geopolitical world order that the Islamic
terrorists have had in the last half century. Without a navy or an air force
or an army, without any of the paraphernalia of a normal nation state, a
handful of terrorist organizations have managed to seize the center stage of
world affairs, and have been deciding the fate of nations. They have all but
shattered the international system of alliances upon which the Pax Americana
depended; they have turned many of our former allies into current enemies;
they have rallied fifth columnists within every Western democracy, including
our own, to champion the cause of radical anti-Americanism; they have
seduced the progressive Left into defending the most reactionary regimes in
the world. They have turned one European election to their own purposes, and
have thereby acquired a technique that can be all too easily applied to
other elections, raising a question of the survivability of parliamentary
democracy in the face of future coordinated terrorist strikes. They have put
the governance of the United States on permanent hold by putting the fight
against terrorism on top of our national agenda, where it will remain as
long as the terrorists are willing to act to keep it there. In short, it is
the terrorists who are calling the shots.

How did this happen? How did the vast power of the West, and the enormous
benefits of the Pax Americana, fail to defend us against the demon of
terrorism?

This is where Western culpability lies. We meant well. We sympathized with
the plight of the Palestinians, and for good reason; but we let this
sympathy get the better of our judgment. When the Palestinians first used
terror, many liberals argued that this was a legitimate way for a subject
people to defend themselves, and we cited what seemed to be analogous
conduct on the part of anti-colonialist revolutionaries, like the Algerian
nationalists -- or indeed, like the American patriots who fought to shake
off the yoke of England. The operative motto was, "One man's terrorist was
another man's freedom fighter."

Today, in the era of the war on terrorism, this motto has become a source of
uneasiness and confusion. On the one hand, many of us want to declare that
all forms of terrorism constitute an unmitigated evil; yet, on the other
hand, it is impossible to avoid noticing that some acts of terror have
successfully been used in order to bring about desirable political change.
Were the Spanish who rebelled against Napoleon in 1808 terrorists? And what
about the Germans who tried to blow up Adolf Hitler with a bomb -- they
failed in their mission, but would their success have been wrong? Or the
Algerian nationalists who wanted France to stop ruling them, and who used a
systematic campaign of terror to bring about their national liberation?

For better or for worse, one man's terrorist quite often is another man's
freedom fighter. The Algerian nationalists were terrorists to the French,
but freedom fighters from the point of view of the nation state that their
terror brought into being. This fact, however, has nothing to do with moral
or cultural relativism; nor does it give us permission to call someone a
freedom-fighter merely because he enjoys blowing people up. Rather, the
Algerian experience reflects a particular set of historical circumstances
familiar to us from antiquity, namely, the struggle of one people to acquire
independence from the control of another people.

Such struggles are not pretty. They were not pretty in the ancient world,
nor in the modern one. Like the founding of a state, the liberation of a
people is inevitably a violent process in which many innocent lives are
lost. Yet there are two things that all such historical struggles have in
common: first, the violence has a point, and second, the violence is not an
end in itself.

Consider the case of Timothy McVeigh. What point did his violence have? Or,
to put it another way, what was he intending to achieve by the bombing of a
building full of innocent American men, women, and children? According to
McVeigh's own account, it was to raise the consciousness of ordinary
Americans, and to make them see how terrible their Federal government was.
Did it have this effect? Or, more to the point, could it have had this
effect? Did the American people cheer McVeigh for his generous efforts to
make them see the truth about the Zionist occupation government? With the
exception of Gore Vidal, the answer is no.

Was McVeigh a freedom fighter, or a terrorist? In his own mind, he was a
freedom fighter; and if subjective intention is enough to determine this
question, then we would be forced to acknowledge that McVeigh was indeed a
freedom fighter; but then we would be forced to acknowledge that John Wilkes
Booth and Charles Manson were both freedom fighters as well, along with the
next lunatic who wishes to slaughter people in order to bring about a
popular uprising that exists only in his own fevered imagination.

In short, if freedom fighter is to mean anything, it must have genuine
substance to it, and this can only come about in one way: the man who is a
real freedom fighter must be fighting for what his entire community
recognizes as their freedom, and not merely for his own feverish
hallucinations.

This was true of the Algerian terrorists, and it was equally true of the
Israeli terrorists, like the Stern gang. Both groups used terrorism as an
interim tactic exclusively designed to bring about a political objective,
namely, the civic freedom of their respective communities. They were using
terrorism not as an end in itself, but as a mere makeshift device, so that
once their political objectives had been achieved, those who had used
terrorism stopped using it.

You are free to deplore such use of terror; and yet, if you go back to the
founding of any lasting state, you will discover lawless violence and
illegitimate uses of force -- in short, terror. The only difference is that
modern states like Algeria and Israel were formed in a period of history
where such acts were considered horrendous atavisms -- which, of course,
they were, judged by the standards of modern civilization.

Throughout this essay I will take for granted the idea that terror can be
used for legitimate purposes, as it was used during the period of
de-colonization, when various peoples, like the Algerians and the Israelis,
struggled to create independent nations from what had once been European
colonies and mandates. I will even go so far as to accept the idea that such
terror could be dialectically justified by the results achieved through it,
and that in this case, the ends justified the means.

Once I have granted all of this, however, I will draw a sharp distinction
between terror as a means to an end, and terror as an end in itself, because
the crisis that the West faces today has arisen in large measure because of
the West's failure to understand the chasm that separates instrumental
terrorism employed by the Algerians and Israelis to found nation states of
their own from the pointless ritual terrorism of the Palestinians, designed
not to create a Palestinian state, but to perpetuate a fantasy agenda that
involves the ultimate liquidation of the state of Israel.

3. "THE CYCLE OF VIOLENCE"

The failure of the West to distinguish between these two types of terrorism
is not due to a liberal bias or to a conservative one, or even a pro-Israeli
or a pro-Palestinian one. Everyone from Noam Chomsky to George W. Bush
tacitly assumes that Palestinian terrorists should not be treated like al
Qaeda terrorists. Many on the left feel a mistaken sympathy for the
Palestinian terrorists out of a belief that they are like the Algerian
freedom fighters, while many on the right feel that political realism forces
them to distinguish between these two forms of terrorism.

Political realism was the primary justification several American
administrations negotiated with the late Yasser Arafat, despite his history
as an instigator and abettor of terrorism, and it is the same political
realism that has led administrations to scold Israel for its elimination of
leaders of the various Palestinian terrorist organizations. According to
this point of view, it is imperative that the United States must appear to
be what Bismarck called "an honest broker" in the Israeli-Palestinian
dispute, adjudicating between the legitimate claims of both antagonists.
Therefore, while the Clinton or Bush administration may deplore Palestinian
terrorism against Israelis, each has normally felt obliged to condemn Israel
retaliation for continuing what is called "the cycle of violence."

Here we come to the first, and perhaps the most common, form that our modern
cant about terrorism assumes -- a phrase that slips so easily off the
tongues of anchorpersons that no one ever stops to inspect its meaning.

You walk into my house and shoot my wife dead. I chase you out of the house
and gun you down in the street. The next day your son kills me; and two days
following my son kills your son.

Now here is a cycle of violence, and yet can there be any doubt who started
this cycle? You did. True, I may have done things that, in your opinion,
justified your violence; but provided I did not use physical violence
against you or yours, then you were the first one to escalate to the
deliberate use of violence.

So how could I have stopped the cycle of violence? Well, by not doing
anything to you or your kin when you killed my wife.

But would this have stopped the cycle of violence? What if you came the next
day and shot my son, and I still didn't use violence to avenge myself. In
this case, is my refusal to stoop to the use of violence a factor promoting
the end of violence, or an incentive to more violence on the part of the
person who first decided to use it?

The "cycle of violence" is a cant phrase, like so many other cant phrases
circulating today, in that it permits us to feel as if we have said
something profound when in fact we are talking utter nonsense. Yes,
violence, once begun, often breeds violence -- but, as history amply
demonstrates, violence breeds violence no matter how the other party
responds to it. Fighting violence breeds it, but so too does appeasing
violence. Furthermore, massive and overwhelming violence, far from
continuing the cycle of violence, often stops it in its tracks, like the
atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

So what is the phrase "cycle of violence" good for? Well, for deceiving
ourselves into thinking that we can be even-handed and fair-minded in our
approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Since it is all just a cycle
of violence, we do not need to take sides, or decide whose violence is
justifiable. All violence is equally wrong, on this view; hence the role of
the honest broker is to deplore both Israeli violence and Palestinian
violence as if there were no difference between them.

This policy is similar to the policy on violence that is fashionable in
American public schools today. If two boys are found fighting, both are
punished equally, and no attention is paid to the question, "Who started
it?" All violence is equivalent. The violence of the bully, and the violence
of the boy who is determined to put the bully in his place, are one and the
same. The heroic kid, who is prepared to stand up to the bully, is not
honored, but sent to detention or expelled.

In the context of a public school, such a policy can be justified by the
obvious problem of how do you go about determining who really started the
fight when both boys, along with their buddies, are screaming that it was
the other side who threw the first punch. Yet matters of expediency must not
be elevated to maxims of morality. It is fine to break up two boys with the
statement, "One of you may well be totally in the right and the other
totally in the wrong -- but, unfortunately, the school system lacks the
facilities to pass a judgment on this question. Therefore, we are forced to
punish both the guilty and the innocent." But it is not fine to tell them
that all violence is equally wrong, and to condemn both equally for
resorting to it, since this, rather from being a straightforward statement
of school policy, is transparent cant.

Yet this is the position that so much of the world inevitably takes when it
is a question of eruptions of violence between the Palestinians and the
Israelis. "There they go again," is apt to be the response of many
fair-minded Westerners; and each new terrorist act, and each retaliation
against it, are weighed against one another as if they were morally
equivalent.

Psychologically, it is understandable why so many Westerners feel this way.
Those, for example, who have gone back to the origins of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict inevitably discover that their sincere efforts
to solve the question, "Who started it?" are baffled by the bloody and
violent historical track record of both Israelis and Palestinians. But, in
fact, it is not necessary for us to try to determine the question of who
started it. This is because, even when we cannot be clear about who started
it, we can be reasonably certain about who is not trying to stop it -- and
this is certainly true in the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The
Israelis retaliate against terror, and they try to prevent it; but they do
not use acts of terror to deliberately disrupt attempts at a peaceful
solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the Palestinian terrorist
organizations do. They have for decades, and they continue to engage in such
terror, despite Palestinian national elections and concessions made by the
Israelis. Nor is there any reason to suppose that this terror will end, so
long as there are Palestinian organizations whose very existence depends on
maintaining a condition of anarchy and disorder. Any stable and peaceful
solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would, in and of itself, rob
the terrorist leaders and their followers of their power and importance.
Thus, they have a vested interest in keeping uproar and violence alive.

Despite this painfully obvious fact, the apologists of Palestinian terror
argue that, unlike the Israelis who have tanks and airplanes, the
Palestinian militants lack the means to express their political aspiration,
except through acts of terrorism. But couldn't Timothy McVeigh have said the
same thing? "Yes," he might have said, "I would have declared war on the
Federal government if I had been equipped with my own military force, but,
lacking that, I did the best I could: I blew up lots of perfectly innocent
people."

The argument does not work in McVeigh's case because we do not accept the
legitimacy of his aspirations: we do not see the point of his act of terror,
nor do we see any link between the point he was trying to make and the means
he elected to make it with.

This, however, is not the way that most of the world views Palestinians acts
of terror. These atrocities are looked upon as the _expression -- however
immature or misguided -- of what is called "the legitimate aspirations of
the Palestinian people."

4. "THE LEGITIMATE ASPIRATIONS OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE"

This second cant phrase is short hand for saying that while, of course, we
can't approve of all the aspirations of the Palestinian people, such as the
liquidation of the state of Israeli, we can approve of their legitimate
aspirations, such as the desire to have a state of their own. But this is
like telling a young man who has his heart set on marrying your daughter
that you approve fully of his desire to find himself a bride, but that you
have no intention of offering him your daughter's hand in marriage. By doing
this, you are not recognizing his actual aspirations as legitimate; you are
trying to get him to aspire to something quite different -- something that
you are prepared to regard as his legitimate aspiration, such as marrying
someone else's daughter instead of yours. Thus, when apologists for
Palestinian terror use this cant phrase what they really mean is this: If
the Palestinians were interested in establishing a state next to Israel that
did not continue using terrorism against Israel in the hope of driving it
into the sea, then this would be fine with them -- just as a Hitler who was
happy in his own homeland and who had no interest in exterminating the Jews
would have been fine with Churchill.

It is absurd to suggest that a people who have passionately dedicated
themselves to an unacceptable goal, such as the destruction of the Jewish
state, are really expressing a reasonable goal cunningly hidden from view
within the unacceptable goal. Hitler, for example, in his ultimatum to
Poland over the city of Dantzig had a reasonable goal -- the return of a
German city to its original homeland -- but accompanying this reasonable
goal was one that was quite unacceptable, namely, the use of violence to
destroy the independence of Poland. Had Neville Chamberlain said at that
time, "Well, Mr. Hitler's ultimatum does reflect the legitimate aspirations
of the German people as well as the people of Dantzig," he would have been
quite correct -- ninety percent of the city wanted to be re-united with
Germany, just as Germany wanted to be re-united with it. But what value were
these legitimate aspirations if they were not the real aspirations -- as
they clearly were not?

The much maligned Chamberlain was not fooled by Hitler's claims of
legitimate aspirations: he had seen what "the legitimate aspirations" model
had lead to after the Munich accord when Hitler, not satisfied with
re-uniting the Germans of the Sudentenland -- his original legitimate
aspirations -- elected to march into the Czech republic and liquidate it as
a national entity.

Cant talk of legitimate aspirations, when used in connection with
Palestinian terrorism, deceives many well-meaning people into believing that
such terror has a realistic and acceptable goal, namely, the fulfillment of
the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people to have a state of
their own, when in fact the only way to fulfill the aspirations of the
Palestinian militants and terrorists is through the liquidation of Israel.
That is why any Palestinian political organization that expects Israel,
America, or the rest of the world to take it seriously must figure out a way
not merely of controlling the terrorists, but eliminating them altogether.
No one can take seriously the claims to political responsibility of a people
whose elected leaders cannot control gangs of terrorist thugs -- a fact of
which the current Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, appears to be painfully
aware.

Here, as so often, sympathetic Americans see the plight of the Palestinian
people and think to themselves, "What would be my aspirations if I were in
such a situation?" And from this premise, they conclude that the
Palestinians would aspire to the same kind of thing that we would aspire to
under the same circumstances: to create our own state, to operate it
independently, and to live in peace alongside Israel. But this is a
classical example of the sympathetic illusion that prevails in so much
Western thinking about the aspirations of the Palestinians in particular and
the Arabs in general.

The upshot of this sympathetic illusion is that we unconsciously replace the
Palestinian fantasy aspirations of total victory over Israel with our own
modest "Live and let live" attitude, thereby creating the mirage of a
legitimate goal to which our imaginary Palestinians would be aspiring if
they were just like us.

This mirage of a legitimate goal is essential to all Western apologetics for
Palestinian terrorism. Thus an organization like Hamas is seen as seeking a
legitimate objective, namely the creation of an independent Palestinian
state, but is simply going about it the wrong way. Instead of following the
roadmap to peace, they are using terrorism. So get them to stop using
terror, engage them in the peace process, and that way, the state of Israel
will find peace and the "legitimate aspirations" of the Palestinians would
be accommodated.

On this view, the Palestinian aspirations are sound; it is simply that the
Palestinians have chosen an unfortunate means to achieve these aspirations,
namely, terror. Get them to stop using terror, and help obtain their
legitimate goals, and all will be well.

Underlying this Pollyanna scenario is the idea that Palestinian terror is a
poor man's form of Clausewitzian warfare. Palestinian terrorism, like
traditional war, is politics carried out by other means. Unlike the
Israelis, the Palestinians lack the military hardware of their enemy, and
hence are entitled to use whatever means necessary in order to achieve their
objectives -- objectives that, according to the "legitimate aspiration"
thesis, are the same objectives of any other people: national independence.

But independence from what?

Well, obviously from the Israelis.

Yet the moment the conflict is framed in this way, it becomes quite obvious
that anyone buying into this scenario is evoking a model drawn from the
period of de-colonization that followed World War Two, with the state of
Israel cast as the European oppressor, and the Palestinian people cast as
the oppressed native population. Hence the origin of the most specious of
all the arguments for Palestinians -- indeed, in many ways, the one central
premise in the canon of pro-terrorist cant, namely, the notion that Israel
is not really a state, but a Western colony, also known as the myth of
Zionist occupation.

6. THE MYTH OF THE ZIONIST OCCUPATION

The spell that this model casts over minds in the West, including minds that
should know better, can hardly be overemphasized. For it is this model that
permits Western apologists for Palestinian terrorists to see them as freedom
fighters who, like the Algerian revolutionaries, are simply using any means
that comes to hand to secure their national homeland from European
occupation. As a result, the Palestinian struggle against "the Zionist
occupation" is no different from the struggle of any other indigenous people
to liberate themselves from colonial oppression.

According to this model, the Palestinian use of terror is legitimate because
of the noble ends that it serves. As Lenin remarked, "You cannot make an
omelet without breaking the eggs," so that, going on this analogy, that
Palestinian terror is nothing more than the egg breaking that is necessary
in order to rid the Palestinian people from the yoke of European
subjugation, with the establishment of an independent Palestinian state
playing the role of the omelet.

On this popular view, the Palestinian struggle is the last great battle for
independence from European colonialism, and hence it is, in effect, simply
an updated version of the Algerian struggle for national independence half a
century earlier. The Algerian revolutionaries used terror; the Palestinians
use terror. Both forms of terror, it is claimed, aim at the same end --
liberation from colonial oppression. Therefore, if the Algerians were
justified in breaking eggs because of the omelet that resulted, why
shouldn't the same culinary logic apply to the Palestinians?

Here we have an example of cant thinking that arises out of a completely
false analogy, and that best way to see this is to examine the original
proto-type.

The Algerian model of terrorism was developed out of the concrete historical
circumstances of the Algerian independence movement, concerning which three
factors stand out as having a critical bearing on the analogy between the
Algerian and the Palestinian model of terrorism.

First, there was never any doubt what the Algerian terrorists wanted. From
the initial use of terror, it was clear that the desired political objective
was the severing of all ties to France, and the establishment of complete
independence -- and at no point did the Algerian terrorists ever waver from
this unconditional demand.

Second, independence was a demand that, however painful its satisfaction may
have been to many Frenchmen, was still a demand that the French could afford
to pay. The independence of Algeria was all about Algeria; it required no
drastic alteration in the life of the average Frenchmen, provided he lived
in France, and not Algeria. The French, in short, only needed to give up
Algeria; they did not need to give up France.

Third, all parties knew that once France had acceded to the demands of the
Arab nationalists, that the Arab terror would stop. The French knew this
because the Arab nationalists, though still not representing a sovereign
nation, acted as if they were already one. Though there were quarrels among
them, these never rose to a point where the French government had to wonder,
Who represents the Arab nationalists? Thus the French were assured that once
the Arab nationalists had obtained what they demanded, that no splinter
group will come along to make a set of new demands on France. Besides, what
would be the point of these new demands if the French pulled out of Algeria?

These three factors account for the Clausewitzian quality so obviously
present in the Algeria independence movement. Terror, in this case, was a
form of war used to obtain realistic political ends. Indeed, the only
difference between classical Clausewitzian war -- that is, war between
independent nation states -- and the Algerian war of independence, was
merely a matter of terminology. Algeria was still recognized by most of the
world as a colony. But in the same way that certain modern states are merely
honorific states, and not states in substance, Algeria might have been
called a merely honorific colony, since it proved it was not a colony by
fighting a war the same way that any genuine nation fights a war. It behaved
like a state first, and got recognition as a state second.

At the time of its revolution, Algeria was not recognized by the world
community as an independent and sovereign nation, except by the Communist
block. In this sense, it was the mirror image of those failed states that
are called "states" simply because their existence has been formally
recognized by the United Nations. In this case, what was called a colony was
in fact already a real state -- and it proved this fact by acting enough
like a real nation state to make demands on France, and to force France to
yield to these demands.

Algerian terrorism, whatever else you may say about it, was the breaking of
eggs solely for the purpose of making an omelet, and not merely for the joy
of breaking eggs. But this kind of terrorism was only available as an
instrument of policy because it was terrorism that had a realistic chance of
working to achieve its goal.

This realistic chance turned entirely on the historical setting in which the
Algerian revolution took place, namely, that period in which European
nations were being forced, one after one, to return the colonies that they
had established in earlier centuries back to the native populations, for
good or for ill. It was this setting that made the use of terrorism by
nationalists a realistic political choice, and this is a fact that must be
recognized even by those who might have deplored the making of such a
choice.

In summary, the Algerian model of terror can only be realistically effective
under certain precisely defined circumstances. First, there had to be a
colony that wished to gain its political independence. Second, within this
colony there had to be an emergent state apparatus in the form of a
nationalist leadership that was capable of acting coherently and for a
collective purpose. Third, there had to be a point where the colonizing
country would call it quits rather than continue to pay an increasingly
costly price for maintaining the colonial status of the native population.

This point was reached in France when the French began to genuinely fear
that the Algerian revolution would create a veritable civil war in France;
and this was a price that the French simply were not willing to pay -- and
for good reason. And thus the day came when the French declared: "Enough's
enough -- let them have their independence."

In short, in this case, terror worked, and the Algerian nation was born as a
result of it. True, eggs got broken, but the omelet, for what it was worth,
was made in the end.

7. THE IRRELEVANCE OF THE ALGERIAN MODEL

Now the problem of using the Algerian model to justify terrorism is quite
obvious: when the three conditions enumerated above do not hold, the
Algerian model of terror becomes utterly pointless, and ceases to have even
a quasi-Clausewitzian purpose; and nowhere is this more evident than in the
Palestinian use of terror against Israel. In that case, we need to pay
attention to the motto of Joseph la Farina, the nineteenth century Italian
nationalist who also fought for his country's independence, and who had
learned first hand how much unnecessary blood can be shed in the pursuit of
political fantasies.

La Farina's motto goes like this: "In politics the impossible is the
immoral." And it is by this motto that Palestinian terrorism grossly fails
to live up to the Algerian model. There, terrorism was used in the pursuit
of a realistic goal -- France abandoning Algeria; today, the Palestinian
suicide-bombers are in pursuit of a fantasy -- the fantasy of Israel
abandoning Israel. From this perspective, it is not their use of terrorism
that condemns them, but their utter lack of realism.

The rhetoric of the anti-Israeli left is deliberately customized in order to
conflate and confuse. It argues that Israel is to Palestine what France was
to Algeria -- simply a colonial power occupying territory that does not
really belong to it. Israel, on this reading, is transformed from being an
independent nation state into being merely a colony of America, or perhaps
of the West in general, in which case the model of the Algerian revolution
may be piously invoked, as a way of justifying the terror of the Palestinian
suicide-bombers. See, the apologists for Palestinian terror exclaim, we are
just doing what the Algerians did to gain their independence. If they are
justified in what they did, then we are justifying in what we are doing.

This analogy is based on the curious notion that Zionism was a form of
colonialism, as if somewhere outside Israel there was a mother country
controlled by Zionists -- a contention that can only be made plausible if
you accept the argument that America is itself the Zionist mother country.
Yet even if you are willing to swallow this absurd premise, the analogy
still doesn't hold water -- and a glance back at the Algerian revolution
will show us why.

When it became clear that France was going to pull out of Algeria, the pied
noirs, or those Europeans who had made Algeria their home generations
before, and who were more often than not of Italian and Spanish ancestry
rather than French, decided that they were not going to budge, whereupon
they themselves began to employ the exact same terror strategy against
Metropolitan France that had proven so successful a technique in the hands
of the Arab nationalists. The OAS was formed, and the attacks that they
carried out were just as ruthless, and often more deadly, than the attacks
that had been undertaken by the Algerian revolutionaries -- and all of them
designed to force France into reversing its policy of de-colonizing Algeria.

Thus, if the Palestinians wish to evoke the Algerian model of terrorism to
justify their own use of terror, they must begin by recognizing that the
current population of Israeli does not represent the supposed American
colonial power, but are analogous to the stubborn pied noirs who refused to
leave the land that they themselves regard as their true homeland -- even if
they originally came from somewhere else. It is not necessary to believe
that these Israelis are "right" to have such feelings of visceral attachment
to Israel -- indeed, you can deplore this attachment as much as you wish;
but you must at the same time recognize both the intensity of this
attachment and, what is more important, what the people of Israel are
willing to do in order to defend what they regard as their homeland, and not
merely as a colonial outpost of the American Imperium.

If the Palestinians insist on drawing comparison to Algeria, then they must
recognize that they are not fighting American colonialists, who might be
willing to leave if things got hot enough for them. Instead, they are
fighting against pied noirs who are firmly convinced that they are in their
own homeland, and that no one has a right to push them out of it.

But here the analogy breaks down altogether, because the Israelis cannot be
compared to the Algerian pied noirs for two reasons. First, because the
Israelis are roughly equal in number to the Palestinians, unlike the pied
noirs, who were vastly outnumbered by the Muslim population, at a ratio of
about 10 to 1. Second, because, unlike the pied noirs, the Israelis do not
have to rely on small scale acts of terror, as the OAS did; the Israelis
have an army, an air force, and a huge stockpile of nuclear weapons, with a
delivery capacity sufficient to devastate every major city in the Arab
world. Thus, far from being a vastly outnumbered minority without any means
to defend themselves except by copying the terrorism of the Algerian
revolutionaries, as the pied noirs were eventually driven to do, the state
of Israel possesses the retaliatory capacities that only a handful of states
in the history of the world have possessed; and certainly far more than
Japan, Germany, Italy, or Spain possesses today. Hence the manifest -- and
dangerous -- folly of pretending that Israel is a colony of America or of
the West. If the possession of an enormous stockpile of nuclear weapons does
not make you a sovereign state, it is difficult to say what would.

In short, the pied noirs could not survive where they were by brute force,
whereas the Israelis can. And this one indisputable fact is sufficient to
topple the Algerian model completely. It was possible to use terror to drive
out the French; but it is not possible to use terror to "drive out" the
Israelis, because, like the pied noirs, they are unwilling to be driven out,
but, unlike the pied noirs, they have the military might to keep anyone from
seriously thinking of driving them out. Hence, those Palestinians who
believe that they can secure their goal of driving Israel into the sea are
operating on the same level of fantasy thinking that was displayed by
Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Furthermore, there is this consideration. If the Israelis feel that they
have been betrayed, as the pied noirs felt betrayed by France, they would
have the wherewithal to make matters quite unpleasant for the world -- and
the traditional Israeli admiration for the martyrs of Masada is an
indication of just how far the Israeli government might be prepared to go in
extremis. If we are to die, we are prepared to take as many with us as
possible -- this represents the ace in the hole of Israel, and one that is
so self-evident that there is no need to articulate it. When a proud nation
is pressed to the wall, and fighting tooth and nail to insure its biological
survival, it may take whatever steps it deems necessary to defend itself.
When Louis the XIV attacked Holland, the Dutch immediately broke their dikes
and flooded their country, thereby making it impassible for the French
armies. Similarly, when Napoleon arrived to celebrate his great triumph in
Moscow, an order had already gone forth to burn the great and beautiful city
to the ground.

Those who have no sympathy for the Israelis must still have a healthy
respect for what they might be capable of doing when they suddenly find
themselves in the same desperate situation that their ancestors found
themselves in on mount Masada nearly two thousand year before. Those who
think that the Israelis would go down without a catastrophic parting shot at
the Arab world -- and perhaps Europe as well -- are simply being naíve. Hate
the Israelis as much as you wish; you must still take a realistic measure of
their awesome capacity to inflict damage on anyone who assumes that they
could be removed from their land without one final apocalyptic death spasm;
and this single fact renders the Palestinian use of the Algerian model
utterly ridiculous. Metropolitan France had a breaking point, and the
Algerians revolutionaries were able to push them to this point. But the
Israelis cannot afford to have a breaking point; and if they did, the
achievement of this breaking point by the Palestinians would not result in
the evacuation of Israel, but in the destruction of the Palestinians
themselves, and perhaps millions in the Arab world as well.

8. TERROR FOR THE SAKE OF TERROR

There is a psychological barrier here that is of profound significance. The
Algerian terrorists looked upon terror frankly as a tool. Their strategy
dictated that there had to be terror bombings, but the terrorists themselves
were not interested in slaughter for the sake of slaughter, so that when the
French agreed to pull out, those who had been terrorists turned to something
else.

But what do the Palestinians suicide bombers turn into when they stop being
terrorists? Into cinders. Those who practice this kind of terror do not see
it as a bloody and ghastly instrument that they hope one day to set aside,
and in this respect they differ profoundly from both the terrorists who
helped to found an independent Algeria and the terrorists who helped to
establish the state of Israel.

Yet most in the West refuse to see this difference, or to acknowledge it
when they do. Through the cant phrases we have examined, and the absence of
serious thinking that is the inevitable product of the repetition of such
phrases, the Palestinian terrorists have become officially licensed to use
terrorism in a way that no other group of people had been licensed. They
became free to murder Israelis decade after decade, and to encourage their
own children to kill themselves to achieve this pointless end. Unlike the
Algerians and the Israelis before them, the Palestinians were not expected
to achieve any serious purpose by these acts, but were permitted to indulge
in them virtually as a form of self-_expression.

In the culminating cant phrase of all, terrorism became formalized as "the
_expression of the desperation of the Palestinian people," a book of
lamentations written in mangled corpses of the Palestinians' own children --
almost a ritual deserving of respect, like the Jewish Kaddish or the
Catholic mass for the dead. It was sacred, and therefore above criticism.
Why do they encourage their children to explode bombs against their chests?
Because of their desperation.

Other people have despaired, and not one is recorded which decided to
express its despair in this particular way: the Armenians persecuted by the
Turks, the Jews persecuted by the Cossacks, the Irish persecuted by the
English, and down the list, and not a one of them ever thought about
immolating their own offspring on such a senseless and bitter pyre. And it
is supposed to mean nothing to us that the Palestinians and the Arabs find
such a sacrifice ennobling to the family that urges it?

The Palestinian terrorists, in short, are past masters at breaking eggs.
But, unlike the Algerian revolutionaries, they appear to have forgotten that
the whole point of breaking eggs was to make an omelet. They have become
obsessed with breaking eggs only for the pleasure they seem to get from
smashing delicate things.

Those who support the endless smashing of bodies for the mere sake of
smashing bodies are not standing on the right side of history. They are in
league with the forces of anti-civilization. They are cheering on those who
no longer remember how to create and construct, and indeed who no longer see
any purpose in creating or constructing.

This is why those who have genuine sympathy with the Palestinian people must
stop extending sympathy for those who continue to pursue a totally
unrealistic fantasy, especially now that a genuine alternative is being
offered to them by a leader that they have chosen themselves. But Mahmoud
Abbas can only be successful in bringing an end to Palestinian terrorism if
the opinion of the rest of the world stands solidly behind him in his
struggle to control the virus of terrorism that has plagued the Palestinian
people just as much -- if not more -- than it has plagued the Israelis. That
is why those who continue to apologize or palliate Palestinian terror are
betraying the very people that they are claiming to support. It is time, in
short, to stop the cant in defense of terrorism, no matter from what source
it may come.

Lee Harris is author of Civilization and Its Enemies.

http://www.techcentralstation.com/022805A.html

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 5:35pm):

"Also, you may want to take note that most Palestinians still support the right of the refugees to return to the homeland they were uprooted from in 1948. This does not need to imply that they reject a Jewish homeland in Palestine (see Arendt) but it does mean that they question the idea that Israel ought to remain an exclusively Jewish State rather than a multi-cultural Palestinian/Israeli state."

Let's say I believe you, Mohammed. Why is it ok for the Palestinians to have a state where they don't allow any Jews to live and any Jews who already live there will be forced to leave, but not ok for Israel to refuse to allow the so-called refugees to return to their former homes, even though Israel had to absorb a roughly equal number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands?

"Mainstream Zionism is the ideology that left no place for the Palestinians in Palestine. It is the ideology that was translated into a program of ethnic cleansing in 1948"

That's just plain false. Over two-thirds of Israelis support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and the vast majority of the West Bank -- contrast that with the two-thirds of Palestinians who support genocidal terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians. And you cannot deny that invading Arab armies called upon so-called Palestinians to leave their homes during the 1948 war so they wouldn't have to worry whether the people they were randomly killing were Jews or Arabs -- you can look it up in Arabic language newspapers of the time. That means that it was the Arab nations that pursued a policy of ethnic cleansing on behalf of you and your Palestinian brethren. As such, your claim that Zionists engage in ethnic cleansing is a blatant lie. We can only conclude that you are either incapable of telling the truth or you are so filled with hate that you cynically repeat any lies you think your gullible, uninformed neighbors might believe. Not to pull out the Nazi card (speaking of ethnic cleansing, weren't the Palestinians among the most ardent supporters of the Nazis?), but Joseph Goebbels used the same techniques to convince the world that the Nazis weren't engaged in ethnic cleansing against the Jews.

It's an interesting parallel, isn't it, now that you're doing exactly the same thing?

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 5:37pm):

London's Red Mayor Baits a "Nazi" Jew
By Melanie Phillips
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 21, 2005

Suddenly, all the talk in Britain is of anti-Semitism. For the past few
years, despite the firestorm of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish prejudice that
has been raging, any protests have been slapped down as paranoia. Yet in
last few days, a lot of people are discovering the phenomenon. The cause is
Labour's supremely politically correct mayor of London, "Red" Ken
Livingstone.

At a publicly funded party he threw to celebrate the 20th anniversary of
Labour MP Chris Smith coming out as gay, Livingstone was door-stepped by
Oliver Finegold, a reporter for the London Evening Standard. The mayor
responded by asking whether he had previously been a German war criminal.
When Finegold protested that he was Jewish, Livingstone observed: "Arrr,
right, well you might be Jewish but actually you are just like a
concentration camp guard, you are just doing it because you are paid to,
aren't you?"

The train of thinking behind this remarkable outburst was that the Standard,
which Livingstone hates because it opposes his policies, is owned by
Associated Newspapers, which also owns the Daily Mail (for which I happen to
write). In the 1930s, the Mail supported Oswald Mosley's fascists.

Livingstone's seamless connection between that episode 70 years ago and a
Jewish reporter from the Standard asking him a question about a gay party in
2005 struck people as both beyond comprehension and deeply objectionable.

It is bad enough call anyone a German war criminal. Likening Finegold to a
concentration camp guard when Livingstone knew he was a Jew was
unforgiveable. Not only was it deeply offensive, but in calling a Jew a Nazi
it trivialised the Holocaust and denied the history of Jewish suffering. And
this from a mayor whose professed "anti-racism" defines his politics.

It has all been made even worse by Livingstone's refusal to apologize. The
Greater London Assembly, the mayor's "parliament," is appalled. The
promoters of London's bid to host the 2012 Olympics, which was being
assessed by the International Olympic Committee this very week, are aghast.
The mayor's own advisers have told him to apologize. Prime Minister Tony
Blair, has told him to say he is sorry. The Board of Deputies of British
Jews and the Commission for Racial Equality have reported him to the
Standards Board for England, which could ban him from office for five years.

Yet Livingstone has not merely refused to apologise but brazenly justified
his attack on Finegold. Spraying ever more extravagant insults, he also
rambled on about his opposition to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the
massacres at Sabra and Shatila in 1982. Many have been left wondering
whether he has lost his mind altogether.

So why has the normally politically adroit Livingstone, who reinvented
himself from being the leader of the "loony left" in the 1980s to become the
cheeky chappie who was elected mayor of London on a wave of popular
affection in 2000, not only fallen into a hole but kept on digging? The
immediate explanation surely lies in the Qaradawi affair and the mayor's
embrace of Islamist extremism.

Last summer, Livingstone hosted in London Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, the Muslim
Brotherhood-influenced Islamic jurist who has supported homicide terrorism
by the Palestinians and expressed poisonous and even murderous prejudice
against Jews, gays, and women (a set of attitudes more befitting the 1930s).

Qaradawi was in London to preside over the annual meeting of the European
Council for Fatwa and Research and a conference on the hijab, both at
Livingstone's invitation.

Livingstone's warm public endorsement of Qaradawi managed to unite against
himself an extraordinary coalition of protest by those who felt directly
threatened by the Islamist's views. This coalition remarkably included Jews,
gays, Hindus, bi-and-transsexuals, Sikhs, women's rights organisations,
progressive-minded Muslims, and students, who produced a thick dossier
charting Qaradawi's terrifying attitudes.

Livingstone hit the roof at this, and no wonder. For among those now ranged
against him - and accusing him, no less, of condoning the most violent and
virulent prejudice, the crime of crimes - were the very constituencies of
the victim-culture on which he had constructed his entire political
platform. The rainbow coalition of minorities had now turned against their
erstwhile patron.

Without these minorities, Livingstone has no power base. That is surely why
he threw the otherwise baffling extravaganza for Chris Smith, to mend his
fences with the all-important gay rights lobby.

But the Qaradawi affair had thrown up another very disturbing feature. For
Livingstone produced his own utterly bizarre counter-dossier defending his
right to host Qaradawi, whom he described admiringly as "one of the most
authoritative Muslim scholars in the world."

In this, he carefully distanced himself from Qaradawi's views - while
managing, offensively, to equate them with those held by Catholics and Jews
- while claiming that Qaradawi was neither a supporter of terrorism nor a
social reactionary, but instead "one of the Muslim scholars who has done
most to combat socially regressive interpretations of Islam on issues like
women's rights and relations with other religions."

Let us briefly remind ourselves of some of the highlights of the
"progressive" Qaradawi's oeuvre. He has said that Europe will be conquered
for Islam by preaching and ideology. He supports democracy, provided it is
driven by the laws of Sharia.

He approves of female circumcision. He supports the "light" beating of wives
by their husbands. He has lent his name to discussions about the most
appropriate method for executing homosexuals. He sits on the Shariah
[Islamic Law] Board of al-Taqwa Bank which was designated a Specially
Designated Global Terrorist, and its assets frozen, by the U.S. government.

He is rabidly Judeophobic. His sermons regularly call for Jews to be killed,
along with "crusaders" and "infidels." He has spread the lie that the Torah
permits Jews to spill the blood of others and to seize their land. He has
insisted that all Jews are responsible for Israel's actions, and on
al-Jazeera's website stated: "There is no dialogue between us except by the
sword and the rifle." Although he disapproves of al-Qaeda's terrorism, he
supports human bomb terrorism against Israel. He said: "The Israelis might
have nuclear bombs but we have the children bomb and these human bombs must
continue until liberation."

Horrifying stuff. But according to Livingstone, it isn't true. The
allegations against Qaradawi, he claims, amount to nothing more than a
conspiracy. And here his document veers into the utterly irrational. He
claims that since some of Qaradawi's utterances have been translated by the
MEMRI translation service, whose founder was once an Israeli intelligence
officer, Livingstone claims that the attack on Qaradawi is a Mossad plot. So
in other words, the evidence about Qaradawi is a conspiracy by Jews to lie
about Muslims. The mayor's document states:

It may seem difficult to take such material seriously, but in some respects
the approach of MEMRI, echoed in the dossier, is reminiscent of the various
anti-Semitic conspiracy theories - this can be seen very easily if one
simply substitutes the words "Jewish" and "Judaism" for "Muslim" and "Islam"
throughout the dossier.

This is, of course, preposterous. There has never been a shred of doubt that
MEMRI's translations are accurate. And having claimed that these truthful
renditions of Qaradawi's hair-raising utterances are merely evidence of a
Mossad plot and equate this with classic anti-Jewish false conspiracy
theories is simply mad.

More than that, in this demented attempt to equate Israelis with
anti-Semites, or accuse all his opponents of being Mossad agents or their
dupes, Livingstone's wording has more than an echo of the paranoia pouring
out of the Arab world itself.

This is surely no accident. The mayor is said to be very close to precisely
such Islamists. In particular, his court includes several cadres of a tiny,
hard-Left sect called Socialist Action, which is thought to have links with
British groups that follow the jihadist Muslim Brotherhood.

Certainly, the mayor is being strongly supported in his current travails by
Islamist extremists. The Muslim Brotherhood-influenced Muslim Association of
Britain, which has links to Hamas and says Qaradawi is a moderate, strongly
supports Livingstone in that controversy.

As for the furor over Oliver Finegold, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee
website says Livingstone must be supported against "this vicious attack by
our Zionist enemies. Ken Livingstone is a faithful and tireless friend of
Muslims. And now the Zionists are closing in for the kill - what will
Muslims do?"

This website also says that "Jewish Zionists" abuse their power to influence
foreign policy against Muslims, and that those Muslims who attended the
Holocaust Day ceremony were "Uncle Toms"; and in a feature on the men around
Tony Blair, it singled out only prominent Jews in public life or people with
connections with Jews. Livingstone has said he is "virulently" hostile to
anti-Semitism. With supporters like MPAC and the MAB, what on earth would he
look like if he admitted being hostile to Jews?

But then, Livingstone already has form in this department, with a long
history of accusing Israelis of being "Nazis" or British Jews of being
"neo-fascists" if they support Israel.

And this illustrates the far wider issue - that the Left, of which
Livingstone is such a shining ornament, has gotten into bed with radical
Islamism. Subscribing to its twisted narrative of "oppression," the British
Left routinely libels the Jews of Israel as "the new Nazis," has breathed
life into Muslim Jew-hatred (which itself borrows deeply from Nazi
propaganda), and prompted a terrifying increase in anti-Jewish feeling
ranging from muttered social prejudice, through public accusations of the
"global Jewish conspiracy," all the way to record levels of physical attacks
on Jews, synagogues, and cemeteries.

Tony Blair has been embarrassed by London's mayor. But this is a chicken
that has simply come home to roost. Livingstone was formerly kicked out of
the Labour party on account of his extremism. But when it became clear that
he was going to win the London mayoral race as an independent candidate and
humiliate Labour, Blair readmitted him to the party to ensure that Labour
won that election.

Now Livingstone has re-emerged in his true colors. So, too, has the rest of
the Labour movement, with posters and articles disgracefully using
anti-Jewish stereotypes in order to appease Muslim sentiment, peddling
anti-Jewish prejudice.

For Blair's government, Britain's 280,000 Jews are now utterly disposable,
to be traduced and abused to buy 1.8 million Muslim votes. That is the real
embarrassment of the Livingstone affair - to have hung out the dirty washing
of the Left, which grovels before prejudice and terror to stay in power.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=17081

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 6:15pm):

Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 6:16pm):

Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.Can we please keep posts short and to the point? If the last two long-winded posts are published somewhere on the Internet, then just provide a link that people can paste into their browser.

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 6:25pm):

Yeah, a link is better. Maybe some short excerpts are OK.

At the VERY least get rid of the extraneous line breaks!

Anonymous (March 4, 2005 @ 6:52pm):

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What's new in Muckrakers:

OPINION & EDITORIAL

Zionists disregard human rights

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Friday, March 4, 2005

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