"Phobias" and beating down critics into silence

I left my first comment at Mondoweiss today, about a claim that the messaging of the non-profit, pro-Israel StandWithUs "verges on Islamophobia." The example provided is a fact sheet on the Muslim Brotherhood.

StandWithUs is dedicated to informing the public about Israel and to combating the extremism and antisemitism that often distorts the issues. It helps those who want to educate their own local campuses and communities. It believes knowledge of the facts will correct common prejudices about the Arab-Israeli conflict, and will promote discussions and policies that can help promote peace in the Middle East.

According to Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, a former radical Islamist present when it was first coined, the term "Islamophobia" is "nothing more than a thought-terminating cliche conceived in the bowels of Muslim think tanks for the purpose of beating down critics," to silence criticism of political Islam, to portray Muslims as victims. Those that met at the International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT) in Northern Virginia decided to emulate the homosexual activists who used the term "homophobia" to silence critics. See this for more.

Looking at the Mondoweiss site, it is hard to find anything that does not condemn Israel. There is no balance. I suppose information that is pro-Israel would be seen as Zionist propaganda, lies, or even "Islamophobic." So how does one refute this obsession to demonize Israel, and fairly show what Israelis and Jews confront? Perhaps from a source that cannot be labeled as a mouthpiece, one might see that the threat is not at all irrational, but squarely in the scope of reasonable discourse.

What follows, courtesy of Palestinian Media Watch, is a video from NRK, the Norwegian state-owned station. NRK found that Norway gives the Palestinian Authority about 300 million kroner ($52,628,700) a year, and directly correlated that funding to the PA’s incitement of hatred and glorification of terror.

According to the NRK narrator:

[Palestinian] children grow up learning that Jews are 'Satan with a tail'... Adults hear that Jews are evil and not to be trusted. It is perhaps not surprising that the [Palestinian] hatred is growing.

Talk about "phobia!"

PMW senior analyst Nan Jacques Zilberdik, interviewed in the NRK report, on the importance of publicizing PMW documentation in Norway:

What we [PMW] report is definitely the general [PA] message. We don't provide just a few examples that we have chosen to make it look extreme. I think that Norwegian and other leaders will be surprised to hear what the Palestinian leaders, with whom they talk about peace, say in Arabic.

Yes, people are surprised sometimes to discover what is missing from their knowledge. Thankfully, Norway may be ready to become more balanced when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and perhaps even to do what is right, to stop funding incitement to hate and indirectly funding terrorists in jail for crimes, including multiple murders.

The main point of this post, however, is to communicate that not only pro-Israel activists and "apologists" or "Islamophobes" identify the issue of Jew hatred that adds a malicious and even genocidal fuel to the Palestinian and Islamic cause. No serious person would call the NRK Islamophobic for showing what actually does and will continue to exist, whether we care to see it or not.

SodaStream: Walking the Walk

I wish I could treat this subject in greater detail, but something is better than nothing, especially if information is worth knowing in helping to form judgments.

I do not drink soda, except once in a while, but want to give a shout out to SodaStream, Israel’s successful home soda device company. Some want to shut it down (I hope no environmentalists) because its products are made in an “illegal settlement” and it harms local Arabs. Here is what one such opponent, Code Pink, says:

[T]here is nothing friendly about the destruction of Palestinian life, land and water resources! SodaStream is an Israeli corporation that produces all of its carbonation devices in an illegal settlement in the West Bank. All Israeli settlements exist in direct contravention to international law!

But are these allegations true?

Here is a video about SodaStream I saw at the Step Up for Israel blog. Watch it and decide for yourself if this is a bad company or not, or perhaps one that should be admired.



If this causes a shift in perception, follow it. See where it takes you. So much is shielded from view. Is there more the Code Pinks are not saying because they don't want you to know?

Esther Schapira..."You Go Girl!"

Esther Schapira is a German journalist and filmmaker, the current politics and society editor for German public broadcaster Hessischer Rundfunk. She has produced two award-winning documentaries, Three bullets and a dead child in 2002, about the "death" of Muhammad al-Dura in Gaza in 2000, and The day Theo van Gogh was murdered in 2007, about the real murder in 2004 of Dutch filmmaker, Theo van Gogh, which won her a Prix Europa award. She produced a second documentary about the death of al-Dura, The Child, the Death, and the Truth in 2009.

Last month, Schapira gave expert testimony in the legal battle between Charles Enderlin and Phillipe Karsenty over al-Dura fraud. Her testimony is described:

Esther Schapira, producer for the German public network ARD, and author of two documentary films on the al-Dura case, went to Israel in 2001 to get the story-behind-the-story of soldiers who shot a child and a father who couldn’t protect his son. But due diligence led her to question the authenticity of the news report. Though France 2 and ARD are both members of a pan-European group, Charles Enderlin was aggressive and uncooperative. He refused her request to see the master tape of Talal’s film, saying he would only show it if there was a court order. He threatened to sue her if she claimed the report was falsified. “I was shocked,” said Schapira. “For a journalist, every question is open to question.” She calmly expanded on her reasons for concluding that it is highly unlikely that Israeli soldiers killed Mohamed al-Dura, but “didn’t want to accuse anyone of lying or fabrication, I didn’t have the smoking gun”.

If interested, there is more about al-Dura here and here and in the following clip. It is Pallywood at its finest, if only it was not so tragic in its consequences, for both Jews and Arabs.



Anyway, Ms. Schapira has unloaded on Charles Enderlin in a open letter. Read it and rejoice that there are still journalists on the planet that actually care about presenting facts and trusting consumers to make their own opinions and conclusions.

A couple of excerpts:

It may sound silly to you, but as a journalist I feel personally insulted by your behavior because it is a disgrace for our profession. As journalists we have the duty to find out the truth and tell it. We are not part of any campaign. We are eyewitnesses and we tell our audience what we have seen, what we heard, and what we found out. We ask critical questions and we insist on getting answers. We act according to our best belief — or at least we should. And when we get criticised, when people question our work, when they have doubts and even when they attack us in an unfair way, we have to deal with that by giving more and better and more convincing answers, by presenting more facts.

***

After more then ten years and after two documentaries I have completed during that time, after so much research, all I know for sure is that there is no proof that Mohammed Al-Dura is dead. We simply don’t know what happened to him after your cameraman Talal Abu Rahme filmed him. Let’s hope that he is still alive. That would be the best, of course, first and foremost for him. He might have survived, he might be 23 years old now, he might be a member of the Facebook generation and he might even have taken part in the Arab Spring in Egypt. Who knows? We do know, however, that the story is very different from the way you told it. We know that this false story killed people because it became a major tool of propaganda and was used as a justification for murder, as in the slaughter of Daniel Pearl.

And I know you are a liar. If you lie on purpose, or if you tell a lie because you are a bad journalist and don’t know the truth, it doesn’t matter. The result is the same. You tell lies and I want your audience to know this as well, and I am going to prove this.

This is why after all this time I have changed my mind, and why, after our new encounter, when once again you called me a “militant journalist,” I decided to write this open letter to you. No worry, I am not going to tell once more why your story on Mohammed Al-Dura is wrong. This was what I did in my documentaries, and for good reason, you and your company didn’t sue me as “Charles big mouth” had threatened he would after the second film had aired. No, quite simply, I’ll talk about the passage in your book where you write about me. I could take nearly every sentence and show how wrong you are, what a cheap mixture of insinuations, generalizations, and false statements it is, but it is not worth the effort. Instead I’ll take a few examples that speak for the rest.

 As I said: "You Go Girl!" Thank you, Esther Schapira!

The Stupidity of Humankind

I received a link to the video below in the mail a day or two ago, and put aside the 40 minutes to watch it. I hope whoever reads this will do the same.

Step Up for Israel, in my mind, is where it's at! It is an initiative of JersualemOnlineU.com, an organization committed to teaching and inspiring people of all ages about Judaism and Israel. It is a grassroots Israel education campaign created to promote broad awareness of the growing anti-Israel movement on college campuses in North America, especially as too many young Jews feel disconnected from their heritage and lack a solid understanding of Israel, its history, and its challenges.

On many campuses, anti-Israel rhetoric and anti-Jewish sentiment are becoming accepted and some faculty indoctrinate and intimidate students in the classroom, as administrators look the other way. Through innovative educational methods, SUFI seeks to energize communities and individuals to confront and combat these harmful actions.

Much of the media also seeks to delegitimize the state of Israel. There is power in knowing what’s out there and to spread the word. The fact is that Israel is committed to improving the world through its innovative ideas, technologies, and its humanitarian aid and relief efforts around the globe. Israel values freedom, human rights and cultural diversity, and has the only western democracy in the Middle East. Arabs that live in Israel have a better quality of life than in any Arab state.

The video, Israel Inside: How A Small Nation Makes A Big Difference, is narrated by bestselling author and acclaimed former Harvard lecturer, Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar, and showcases Israel’s unique relationship with the rest of the world.

The contributions of Israel are incredible, especially if one considers the obstacles it has overcome, and which remain. Imagine if the stupidity of humankind could cease, and Israel was freed to use it resources as it wishes, rather than as it must. Some of the greatest beneficiaries would be the Arabs, but we would all be better off.

SUFI tells us:

All of us are responsible for the future of Israel and the Jewish people. If we don’t take a stand and become personally involved today, we will deny future generations the opportunity to understand their role in Israel’s history, and to be part of Israel’s future.

Enjoy the video. It may even bring a tear to your eye. Then, spread the word!

Ignorance of the Well-Intentioned

The following video, entitled "HAMAS," popped up on my radar not so very long ago, thanks to StandWithUs. It was made after the defensive action by Israel in November, 2012, to stop the rockets indiscriminately shot from Gaza at Israel's civilians, a war crime expressly forbidden by the Geneva Convention and Protocols.  

The video reverberated with me for several reasons. As one who follows current events, particularly the Arab-Israeli conflict, and observes discussion and comments on the internet and in gatherings of well-intentioned people, it is striking to recognize how much is grounded in ignorance. This does not mean that these people are ignorant per se, but that the information possessed about history and facts is fragmented, skewed and inaccurate. This leads them to adopt positions that are suspect and may not conform to their underlying principles.

For many, it is hard to see because in their circles, like most circles, people seek out the conventional views they agree with and generally hear little of what differs, or they dismiss what differs without ever listening. One need only look at Washington, DC to see where it is leading us. It's something called the Mutz paradox and it should be a lesson to all that deliberative democracy needs diversity of opinion to work best.

I hope you watch the video, especially if you are a progressive that supports human rights for ALL peoples and individuals. Perhaps the questions asked in the video will sound familiar. Will the answers reveal anything? Just how much do you really know about the conflict, the events, the players and their intentions?



In morality and law, is confronting aggression the same as engaging in it? Is it so hard to make the distinction?

Are calls for genocide illegal? Who are the victims of these calls? Are they entitled to support and even protection? Imagine if someone wanted to exterminate you and your loved ones and so many just shrugged it off as the Hatfields and McCoys.

The bottom line is that there actually is a difference, but for too many it just does not matter, due to ignorance that permits a bias to form, one which seems to blur the ability to discern which side of the human rights debate one is on.

New NGO Confronts Leader of Human Rights Watch, So Can You!

Now this gets me excited.

Back in October, 2009, Robert Bernstein, the founder of Human Rights Watch (HRW), took the NGO to task for being Lost in the Mideast, saying, with respect to its activities:

Human Rights Watch has lost critical perspective on a conflict in which Israel has been repeatedly attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations that go after Israeli citizens and use their own people as human shields. These groups are supported by the government of Iran, which has openly declared its intention not just to destroy Israel but to murder Jews everywhere. This incitement to genocide is a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Leaders of Human Rights Watch know that Hamas and Hezbollah chose to wage war from densely populated areas, deliberately transforming neighborhoods into battlefields. They know that more and better arms are flowing into both Gaza and Lebanon and are poised to strike again. And they know that this militancy continues to deprive Palestinians of any chance for the peaceful and productive life they deserve. Yet Israel, the repeated victim of aggression, faces the brunt of Human Rights Watch’s criticism.

Bernstein called this "low hanging fruit" because he knew that Israel, an open society, received plenty of scrutiny from a powerful civil society within, and an independent judiciary, whereas the primary mission of HRW, successor to Helsinki Watch, was to address closed states where the worst of violations occurred in total secret, like in the gulags of the Soviet Union. Bernstein thereafter founded an NGO called Advancing Human Rights, which  is composed of CyberDissidents.org and Movements.org. Anyone reading should, at minimum, regularly check out these links.

Fast forward to the present.

The Centre for Secular Space (CSS) is another rather new NGO, composed of experienced human rights activists and Middle Eastern liberals and women of color who had worked in concert for years in struggles for women’s human rights and against fundamentalism. It's head is Gita Sahgal, former head of Amnesty International’s gender unit, suspended in 2010 after she publicly expressed concerns about AI’s close relationship with Cageprisoners, a defense group for prisoners in Guantanamo which some consider a pro-salafi-jihadi organization.

Using a feminist analysis CSS addresses gaps in understanding the relationship between terrorism, fundamentalism and peace and security. It believes secularism and universality are key to strengthening civil society and building democracy because gender, religious minority, and sexual rights become issues when human rights are limited by religion, culture, or political expediency. CSS exposes threats by fundamentalist groups and takes note when human rights and other organizations fail to uphold their own standards on gender and discrimination.

CSS has just  published its first book: Double Bind: The Muslim Right, the Anglo-American Left, and Universal Human Rights, written by its American director, Meredith Tax, a novelist, historian, and essayist, and activist in the US feminist movement since the late sixties. Double Bind, using Cagepersons as an example:

shows how to distinguish between organizations that stand for universal and inseparable human rights, and those that use the language of human rights for other purposes. It discusses “five wrong ideas about the Muslim Right”: that it is anti-imperialist; that “defence of Muslim lands” is comparable to national liberation struggles; that the problem is “Islamphobia”; that terrorism is justified by revolutionary necessity; and that any feminist who criticises the Muslim Right is an Orientalist ally of US imperialism. 

CSS, in other words, is not a bunch of right-wing Christian bigots who hate all Muslims, the catch all label thrown about when to silence people that speak out against radical Islam or multicultural relativism and violations of human rights.

So what has this to do with Human Rights Watch?

CSS has sponsored An Open Letter to Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch

Dear Kenneth Roth,

In your Introduction to Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2012, “Time to Abandon the Autocrats and Embrace Rights,” you urge support for the newly elected governments that have brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power in Tunisia and Egypt. In your desire to “constructively engage” with the new governments, you ask states to stop supporting autocrats. But you are not a state; you are the head of an international human rights organization whose role is to report on human rights violations, an honorable and necessary task which your essay largely neglects.

You say, “It is important to nurture the rights-respecting elements of political Islam while standing firm against repression in its name,” but you fail to call for the most basic guarantee of rights—the separation of religion from the state. Salafi mobs have caned women in Tunisian cafes and Egyptian shops; attacked churches in Egypt; taken over whole villages in Tunisia and shut down Manouba University for two months in an effort to exert social pressure on veiling. And while “moderate Islamist” leaders say they will protect the rights of women (if not gays), they have done very little to bring these mobs under control. You, however, are so unconcerned with the rights of women, gays, and religious minorities that you mention them only once, as follows: “Many Islamic parties have indeed embraced disturbing positions that would subjugate the rights of women and restrict religious, personal, and political freedoms. But so have many of the autocratic regimes that the West props up.” Are we really going to set the bar that low? This is the voice of an apologist, not a senior human rights advocate.

Nor do you point to the one of the clearest threats to rights—particularly to women and religious and sexual minorities—the threat to introduce so-called “shari’a law.” It is simply not good enough to say we do not know what kind of Islamic law, if any, will result, when it is already clear that freedom of expression and freedom of religion—not to mention the choice not to veil—are under threat. And while it is true that the Muslim Brotherhood has not been in power for very long, we can get some idea of what to expect by looking at their track record. In the UK, where they were in exile for decades, unfettered by political persecution, the exigencies of government, or the demands of popular pressure, the Muslim Brotherhood systematically promoted gender apartheid and parallel legal systems enshrining the most regressive version of “shari’a law”. Yusef al-Qaradawi, a leading scholar associated with them, publicly maintains that homosexuality should be punished by death. They supported deniers of the holocaust and the Bangladesh genocide of 1971, and shared platforms with salafi-jihadis, spreading their calls for militant jihad. But, rather than examine the record of Muslim fundamentalists in the West, you keep demanding that Western governments “engage.”

Western governments are engaged already; if support for autocrats was their Plan A, the Muslim Brotherhood has long been their Plan B. The CIA’s involvement with the Muslim Brotherhood goes back to the 1950s and was revived under the Bush administration, while support for both the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat e Islaami has been crucial to the “soft counter-terror” strategy of the British state. Have you heard the phrases “non-violent extremism” or “moderate Islamism?” This language is deployed to sanitize movements that may have substituted elections for bombs as a way of achieving power but still remain committed to systematic discrimination.

Like you, we support calls to dismantle the security state and to promote the rule of law. But we do not see that one set of autocratic structures should be replaced by another which claims divine sanction. And while the overthrow of repressive governments was a victory and free elections are, in principle, a step towards democracy, shouldn’t the leader of a prominent human rights organization be supporting popular calls to prevent backlash and safeguard fundamental rights? In other words, rather than advocating strategic support for parties who may use elections to halt the call for continuing change and attack basic rights, shouldn’t you support the voices for both liberty and equality that are arguing that the revolutions must continue?

Throughout your essay, you focus only on the traditional political aspects of the human rights agenda. You say, for instance, that “the Arab upheavals were inspired by a vision of freedom, a desire for a voice in one’s destiny, and a quest for governments that are accountable to the public rather than captured by a ruling elite.” While this is true as far as it goes, it completely leaves out the role that economic and social demands played in the uprisings. You seem able to hear only the voices of the right wing—the Islamist politicians— and not the voices of the people who initiated and sustained these revolutions: the unemployed and the poor of Tunisia, seeking ways to survive; the thousands of Egyptian women who mobilized against the security forces who tore off their clothes and subjected them to the sexual assaults known as “virginity tests.” These assaults are a form of state torture, usually a central issue to human rights organizations, yet you overlook them because they happen to women.

The way you ignore social and economic rights is of a piece with your neglect of women, sexual rights, and religious minorities. Your vision is still rooted in the period before the Vienna Conference and the great advances it made in holding non-state actors accountable and seeing women’s rights as human rights. Your essay makes it all too clear that while the researchers, campaigners, and country specialists who are the arms and legs and body of Human Rights Watch may defend the rights of women, minorities, and the poor, the head of their organization is mainly interested in relations between states.

Organizations:

Association Tunisiene des Femmes Démocrates
Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID)
Canadian Council of Muslim Women (CCMW)
Centre for Secular Space (CSS), global
Ligue due Droit International des Femmes (LDIF), France
Marea, Italy
Muslim Women's Research and Action Front (MWRAF), Sri Lanka
Nijera Kori, Bangladesh
One Law for All, UK
Organisation Against Women's Discrimination in Iran, UK
Secularism Is a Women’s Issue (SIAWI), global
Southall Black Sisters, UK
Women's Initiative for Citizenship and Universal Rights (WICUR), global
Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML), global
Žene U Crnom, Women in Black, Belgrade

Individuals (organizations listed for identification purposes only):

Dorothy Aken'Ova, Exercutive Director, INCRESE, Nigeria
Ahlem Belhadj, Présidente, Association tunisiene des femmes démocrates
Codou Bop, Coordinator, Research Group on Women and the Law, Senegal
Ariane Brunet, Co-Founder, Urgent Action Fund, Canada
Lalia Ducos, WICUR-Women’s Initiative for Citizenship and Universal Rights
Laura Giudetti, Marea, Italy
Asma Guenifi, President, Ni Putes Ni Soumises, France
Lilian Halls-French, Co-President, Initiative Féministe Européenne pour Une Autre Europe (IFE-EFI)
Anissa Helie, Assistant Professor, John Jay College, US
Marieme Helie Lucas, Secularism is a Women’s Issue
Alia Hogben, Canadian Council of Muslim Women
Hameeda Hossain, Bangladesh
Khushi Kabir, Nijera Kori, Bangladesh
Sultana Kamal, Executive Director, Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK), Bangladesh
Frances Kissling, Visiting Scholar, University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics
Maryam Namazie, One Law for All and Equal Rights Now; Organisation against Women’s Discrimination in Iran, UK
Pragna Patel, Southall Black Sisters, UK
Gita Sahgal, Centre for Secular Space, UK
Fatou Sow, Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML)
Annie Sugier, Ligue due Droit International des Femmes (LDIF), France
Meredith Tax, Centre for Secular Space, USA
Faizun Zackariya, Cofounder, Muslim Women's Research and Action Front (MWRAF), Sri Lanka
Afiya Zia, Journalist, Pakistan

Please go and sign the petition that goes with this letter at: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/support-separation-between-religion-and-state-a/

It is the least one can do.

A short word on Progressives and Jew Hatred

Cross-posted at Israel Thrives

This was a comment, but I decided to post it here instead, with respect to the discourse I often experience with people who define themselves as progressives. Most are not Jewish, and they are incredibly unaware of what affects Jews, or how it relates to them.

Generally, they are far removed from the fray, educated, often living in echo chambers of the like-minded, and too in a frenzy to lay the blame for the wrongs of the world on Republicans, who they ridicule and dismiss despite their ideas, as if they have no relevance in the conversation, despite that they comprise almost half the population. Many progressives love to hate corporations and imperialism, too, even as they reap the rewards. For example, I always smile when I hear Morgan Freeman pitching for Bank of America.

I digress. This site is concerned with Israel and Jews. What confuses me is that progressives, sometimes Jewish progressives, say they are well aware of Jew hatred. Are they as aware as they proclaim? What do they propose to do about it? How should one address Jew hatred in general? Not just from the Arabs, who have spread it across the Muslim world, but the Europeans with their sordid history.

Like Israel's right to self-defense, progressives seem to take Jew hatred for granted, they have it factored into their theoretical analyses. In other words, as an object for lip service. Do they offer real solutions directed at the actors? Or are they quick to criticize in most harsh terms people (often those who were persecuted first hand or apostates) with the gumption to point out both the growth of Jew hatred worldwide (which is not hating all Muslims), or that too many progressives are silent or even complicit. The fact is that too many do look away, or are ignorant, or fail to see that silence and indifference matter.

Not trying the Mufti at Nuremberg was a huge mistake, by not putting the same stamp on Islamic Jew hatred as was placed on the Nazis. Both are genocidal. Given this character of the belief, I do not see how anyhow with knowledge could claim to be a liberal and supporter of the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not accept this truth as the point of departure upon which actors and actions are based.

Protecting the Child from Darkness

I have been meaning to write several posts of late, but here it is that I finally get around to it. What was timely then has since been passed by events. In the interim came the Connecticut elementary school killings, a momentous tragedy, exploited by the media until it becomes just another spectacle for mass consumption, diversion, indoctrination, until the next thing comes along. My heart goes out to all those whose lives have been altered. One can hope something positive may result from this darkness.

Darkness affects the child in other ways. The first post I planned to write dealt with children, too, and education, but along the much different lines of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1959 by the UN General Assembly as a precursor to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which codified its principles into international law. Principle 10 of the Declaration says:

The child shall be protected from practices which may foster racial, religious and any other form of discrimination. He shall be brought up in a spirit of understanding, tolerance, friendship among peoples, peace and universal brotherhood, and in full consciousness that his energy and talents should be devoted to the service of his fellow men.

How far astray the international community has drifted from its role to give protection when it refuses to take a stand against something so basic as this:



No behavior by others, like building settlements (even if illegal), can justify or absolve responsibility for this behavior, as a type of offset. It is a violation of the child in every instance. States have an independent legal duty under the CRC treaty to protect the child against all other forms of exploitation prejudicial to any aspects of the child's welfare.  

How far away has the international community drifted when it actually promotes the very things it agrees in law and spirit not to do? Recently, a poem read by hosts of a youth program on Palestinian Authority TV glorified plane hijackings, terror, and hatred of Israel and the US, including:

“Expect us always, expect us where least expected. We’re in every airport, and in every ticket… A small rifle in the hand of a small boy can kill the big one.”

The program, Speak Up, is co-produced with the Palestinian youth NGO PYALARA, funded by the EU, the World Bank, Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden. It has also praised suicide terrorists in their TV programs, saying that they are "role models."



What boggles my mind even more is the ignorance I observe in many well-intentioned, highly educated people, who define themselves as progressive, when it comes to the matter in general, combined with a tendency toward overall indifference that sees things as tit for tat, unable to discern a qualitative distinction concerning the ongoing conflict between Arabs and Jews.

That is the other post I intended to do, and it will follow relatively soon.

(Hat tip to Elder of Ziyon and Palestinian Media Watch)

Expanding on a comment I wrote at Harry's Place

Watching how the reaction has been to Israel's decision to build more settlements, it seems that the  instantaneous world, built on the sensational 24 hour news cycle and ability to manipulate the audience, has outstripped human capacity to think and reflect. Actions are reflexive and usually for the worst because, to a large extent, they are not self-driven.

Ironically, at a time of so much knowledge and technology, you'd think we could create a better world.

If some states and people cannot yet see through the Arab inspired Islamist imperialism, laced with genocidal intent and incitement, then it will require more of it. One can only bring the mule to the water trough, and you know the rest of that story.

It is particularly sad to see the lack of morals in Europe, where states entertain the status of diplomatic relations towards Israel, due to settlements as yet unbuilt, while giving reward to Palestinian violations of the most fundamental obligations of war to civilians, not to mention international agreements. The ability to see right from wrong appears lost.

On one level, it's as if they use Israel to try and purge their own history, putting the collective Jew in the worst place, blind to the fact that their disparate treatment constitutes and is a continuing pattern of antisemitism. Would their states in a similar circumstance live up to the standard of perfection imposed on Israel, the singular Jewish state?

In this environment it becomes easier to look the other way concerning basic facts about unlawful Arab aggression after the the lawful creation of a Jewish homeland and state, the unlawful occupation by Arab forces between 1948 and 1967, or the other clear indicators of malicious intent, such as poisoning the minds of their children toward Jews and even Europe itself. To the contrary, they act from fear of the aggressors combined with greed for resources. Eurabia has arrived.

A web post by Greg Lukianoff made an interesting point about how "smart" some people are, in the context of speech and toleration of thought at the university. It applies in Europe, too, particularly among the so-called intelligentsia that seeks out ways to prop up the "oppressed" at the expense of seeking a balanced narrative. He says:

If higher education were living up to its goal of making people deeper, sharper, and better critical thinkers, we could reasonably expect to live in a golden age of discourse. After all, more of our population is college educated than ever before. But I don’t believe anybody thinks that’s the case. By tolerating censorship and by making it risky for students to honestly speak their minds, universities encourage students to play it safe and talk only to those students with whom they already agree — a tendency that can’t help but spill over into the world off campus once those students leave. This means that higher education, an institution that should be opening people’s minds to new ideas and dissenting opinions, may actually be supercharging our political polarization.

One of the most intriguing pieces of data I came across while researching Unlearning Liberty is that there is an inverse relationship between how much education people have and how frequently they talk to those with whom they disagree politically (this research is covered briefly in Diana Muntz’s excellent Hearing the Other Side: Deliberative versus Participatory Democracy). In other words, there is evidence that the more schooling you receive, the tighter your echo chamber becomes. A truly educated person, however, should develop the intellectual habit of actively seeking out challenging debates rather than settling into a self-affirming clique.

I think Mutz has nailed it. The smartest are just too smart to hear anything from others besides agreement of how smart they are, so it must be right!

Hard to believe, but actions at the UN and in world affairs will need to deteriorate further before enough people become more cognizant of the forces at work, so that elitist, monotone high theories, developed in echo chambers, will garner the repudiation they richly deserve.

The tragedy is that, but for prevention, so much despair could have been halted and even reversed.

(Link to Harry's Place)

Words Are Weapons of Mass Destruction

This is a must read argument by David Keyes, Executive Director of Advancing Human Rights and co-founder of CyberDissidents.org.

Keyes was called a "pioneer in online activism" by The New York Times and contributes to Newsweek/The Daily Beast. He has written for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, Reuters, The Huffington Post and many other leading publications, has appeared on MSNBC, PBS and Bloomberg TV, and has spoken on human rights in the US Congress. He created the First Annual Saudi Women's Grand Prix. He graduated from UCLA in Middle Eastern Studies and completed a Masters in Diplomacy at Tel Aviv University. He speaks Arabic and Hebrew.

Here is Keyes in a short video from 2011, discussing the rights of women in Saudi Arabia.



Keyes's article appeared in Foreign Policy, regarding Hamas, whose leaders commonly call the death of all Jews and all Americans. In other words, for genocide. As the world blinks and looks the other way.



How comforting for a Jew or Israeli, threatened with extermination, to understand that only others are seen as victims of hatred and aggression.

Keyes says:

Instead of welcoming independent thought, Hamas has filled Gaza’s airwaves, summer camps, and schools with the most incendiary rhetoric imaginable. Children are taught a mix of unremitting hatred and wild conspiracy. Perhaps most troubling is glorification of death. Hamas leaders like Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh proudly declare that “death for the sake of Allah is our most supreme desire.” The deputy speaker of the Hamas parliament, Ahmad Bahr, explicates a hadith by saying, “When a man is having sex with his wife, he should be praying for a son who would wage jihad for the sake of Allah.” Of Americans and Israelis, he adds, “They are cowards, who are eager for life, while we are eager for death for the sake of Allah.” How can children in Gaza love life over death when their leaders teach the opposite?

[...]

Democracy in Gaza cannot succeed under such conditions. Language is both a reflection of society and a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hamas’ rhetorical war on liberalism, dissent, sanity, and compromise is strangling any hope of civil society and democratic transition in Gaza. It’s hard to arrest every dissident, but make an example of a few and threaten the rest, and you’ve achieved the same goal. Tolerance does not occur in a vacuum. It is cultivated in families, schools, media, and the language of everyday life. Stifle free speech and mindless policy has a way of making it to the top.
Some are tempted to draw equivalency between incitement in Gaza and incitement in Israel. It goes without saying that there is a degree of hate-speech in every society.

For those that only seem able to see things by way of comparison:

More important than the clear quantitative difference between the extreme rhetoric that sometimes occurs in Israel and the government-sponsored hate-speech in Gaza is the space allowed to confront such extremism. In open societies such as America and Israel, radicalized speech is countered by a vibrant free press in which political leaders are routinely castigated and held accountable for their words. Closed societies like Gaza do not allow for dissent to challenge authority, and therefore hate-speech reigns supreme.

Perhaps the message Keyes tries to deliver will be heard and understood in the larger context of this struggle, not only when it comes to the war of words, but analysis of the actions that follow and the manner in which the actors treat both others and their own.