IJII

Rabbi Angel, I thank you for this. I have no disagreements, but one comment:

My friend "Shimshonit" (her blogging pseudonym, though I do know her in real-life) has posted her own thoughts on this matter: "On Bleeding Hearts", at http://shimshonit.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/on-bleeding-hearts/

Like Rabbi Angel, she emphasizes the need to learn history. Her blog post (see above) concludes with a lengthy reading list for all those who want to be seriously learned and informed in the history of Israel and the Middle East.She also gives an interesting theory on why the world's liberals and leftists so inordinately criticize Israel. She suggests that for a long time, liberals could simply attack whoever had power. Workers are oppressed? Sue the companies. Indigenous people are oppressed? Sue the imperial powers! Blacks lack civil rights? Sue the whites in power! But, she says, liberals have by now forgotten that while attacking those in power is a convenient rule of thumb, it is no longer correct anymore. Today, it is the minorities (terrorists) who oppress and endanger those in power. But the liberals keep on attacking the powerful, oblivious to the fact that those in power are no longer their opponents.

 "Shimshonit"'s husband (whom she refers to as "the Cap'n") said to me that this is a common phenomenon, with a name I cannot remember, in which one mistakes the convenient but oversimplified and superficially misleading rule-of-thumb for what is really key and significant. For example, he said, there were primitives in Africa who'd see Allied forces make certain signals, and then supplies would drop from planes. So the primitives tried the same, and couldn't understand why nothing fell from the sky for them.

No doubt, knowing the history of the Middle East is extremely important to have the correct perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet, it is also the “inconvenient truth”, using an increasingly ironic popular phrase, for those crusading against Israel and Jews in general. These crusaders have been trying to bury the history by selective memory while brazenly constructing an overt and covert Palestinian narrative based on make believe for the past six decades as a revisionist replacement to win over the world opinion.

This erasure and revisionism is part/reflection of a concerted effort to nurse and propagate the myths of the grand radical thought vying for supremacy in the 21st century.

In the 20th century, these myths were the Left, the Revolution and the Proletariat under the umbrella of Marxism-Leninism. In the 21st, it’s the Progressivism, Dirigisme (i.e. State-guided socio-economic life), and the Oppressed of the World.

With the shattering downfall of Marxism-Communism in much of the old Soviet Bloc and with the collapse of its material support system within and without, its global proponents have been primarily preoccupied with finding an equally powerful substitute as de novo “opium of the intellectuals” (as per Raymond Aron).

This replacement ideology is being structured to claim the exclusive rights to the spectrum of concepts its fallen predecessor has been propagating, concepts like western-colonial guilt, imperialistic domination, occupation and oppression of the less developed countries, peoples, minorities, the wretched of the earth, the innocent, the underprivileged, the deprived; ethnic discrimination and cleansing; greedy capitalism with industrial-military complex exploiting the workers, nature, natural resources as well as the poorer nations and countries; and it’s the self-appointed sole custodian of all ideas and ideals noble in this world.

With the Sino-Soviet Eastern Bloc (and most of its satellites elsewhere) faded back on the map, the current practitioner of this radical thought is the Unholy Alliance of the Sanctimonious Progressivism (Statism/Big Government advocates against the free market economy exploiting the themes of resource conservation and preservation under Greenpeace activism to manipulating AWG case to rallying for forced unionization to asking immigration amnesty, et al.) to nihilist Occidentalism (declaring guilty and corrupt Capitalistic West as the mother of all world’s ills), and Jihadist Islamism (self-explanatory) claiming dominance over the world’s conscience with its ideology in place.
Only when we see the religiosity in the premises and theses embodied in this Unholy Alliance, it then becomes easy to know what they really are, genuine fundamentalists with acute and vitriolic fanaticism accompanied by boorish lethal force.

A key component of this “new” creed, this repackaged “opium of the intellectuals”, as is the case with its predecessor, is the embracing of “Palestinianism” (a la Bat Ye’or), which reflects the millennia old Judeophobia (antisemitism, Jew Hate, and anti-Zionism all in one).

This component of the new creed has its original sin, the creation of Israel- which ties in neatly with the main proposition of the Unholy Alliance that America is the grand adversary with supreme immoral and imperial policies. America is the source of all global discontent and Israel (America’s extension but also its covert Control!) is the cause of the radicalism in the 1.2 billion Arab-Moslem world, which present over the most prized oil and other natural energy and resource reserves on earth.

The premise is simple. If there was no Israel, no original sin, all would be fine in the Middle East.

That’s why the Arabs - who only conquered the region in 6th century CE- have happily adopted (as Filistin) the Roman initiated renaming of Judea Samaria as Philistine (after the seafaring people from the Aegean in 12th century BCE) to eradicate the Jewish presence.

Considering Islam originated in the 600s CE in the Arabian Peninsula and prevailed mainly through the Ottoman Turks - who adopted Islam in the 8th century onwards and ruled the Arabian world for almost 400 years without giving any special status to Jerusalem and Palestine/Filistin - it’s long shot to claim “the land and the City” as indigenous Arab land with supreme religious significance.

Knowing that this is the weakest link to the land claim is why Palestinian Arabs allege to be the descendants of Jebusites and Canaanites while avoiding carefully any general or particular details of a any piece of history on an old “Palestinian state”, ancient “Palestinian kingdom”, nation, Palestinian kings, legal system, and currency- simply because there have been no trace of such.

That’s why Jerusalem, which is almost never mentioned in the Koran is gradually elevated up to the second holiest place in Islam accompanied by an increasing assault on its holiest status in Jewish history underscored in veneration in Chumash and all other Jewish scriptures thoudands of times- so that its past as the capital of the Jewish State established by King David is fully buried.

It’s no wonder why Arabs gallingly try to challenge any historical Jewish presence in Judea Samaria, to the extent of whether the Temple ever existed in Jerusalem.

That’s why there’s extreme aversion to talk about Trans Jordan (today’s Jordan) covering 80% of mandated Palestine, the land/country of the Arabs of Palestine, literally awarded to the Hashemites (to King Abdullah, King Hussein’s father) by the British in following the First World War, while one-fifth was allocated to Jews contrary to the Balfour Declaration.

That’s why the Unholy Alliance constantly pushes for the right of return of Palestinian refugees to Israel proper while there’s no mention of the 800,000 Jews pushed out from the Arab countries between 1948-72, with all their properties left behind.

It’s sad to see attempts from some- however fringe- sections of the Jewish community helping out this Unholy Alliance to the extent of disputing the existence of Jews as a nation, as proposed in a recent book The Invention of the Jewish People by Tel Aviv University Professor of French History (!), Shlomo Sand. This good Professor (from the Radical Left) asserts that there never were Jewish people per se, and that Jews are descendants of different ethnicities who converted into Judaism! Naturally, the Unholy Alliance embraces this unsubstantiated historical revisionism with open arms, the Arabs quote from it incessantly, and the French -one country most addicted to the opium of the intellectuals- gives it awards.

As these few examples show, attempts to eradicate Jewish history in the footsteps of the Romans continue forcefully today as part and parcel of the new theology of the self-righteous.

The new Millennium has so far been witnessing a strong assault on America- and the West in general- by this Unholy Alliance from within and from without, threatening its key values and its exceptionalism. Being an integral conduit of America’s success, Jews have a lot to worry and need to defend against this assault in a unified front.

Correctly identifying the source of this assault, this fundamentalist Unholy Alliance in its full dimension is a major prerequisite for avoiding unrealistic expectations (that the adversary will reason) as well as finding effective ways to counter it.

History shows us that we cannot afford to be complacent. We owe our continuity and significance to the three pillars of our existence; HaShem (Source of Being), Torah (His blueprints for our journey on Earth), and the House of Israel (the unity of His Chosen people) with all the rights and obligations contained therein.

The basis of being proactive is the way of the Jewish being, the Torah guided life and working for Tikkun Olam.

This is the way to counter the fundamentalist adversary on all fronts, but in a proactive and not an insular, isolationist manner. And it should be in alliance with the people of goodwill from all walks of life and beliefs, against the very radicalism this Unholy Alliance has adopted- just like in the Cold War, which brought down its predecessor, the “Evil Empire” by tenacious struggle of America in alliance with Western powers and the liberal-moderate elements suppressed by their regimes. This is the long and winding road to peace in the Middle East. Otherwise the disinformation and misinformation about and revisionism in Middle East history will continue unabated to firmly root “Palestinianism” based on victimhood under hundreds of years of oppression and occupation by the Judeo-Christian West. This propaganda will never go away by itself.

I don't want to belabor my points above but it's gratifying to see a Western leader expressing moral clarity regarding global nature of the assault on the West with Israel at the forefront-underscoring the core my previous post.

In an interview in Ha'aretz, former British PM Tony Blair says,

"People sometimes say to me, no, it's not really Iraq, it's Afghanistan," Blair says. "Someone else will say, no it's Pakistan, and someone else will say it's Iraq, and someone else will say it's Yemen. But actually it's all of these because in different ways, they represent different challenges that are unified by one single movement with a single ideology. And this is going to be resolved, in my view, over a long period of time." And he continues, "Actually there is a unifying theme, in my view, between what's happened in countries like our own country with terrorist activity, and what's happening in places like Yemen or Afghanistan or Somalia or, I'm afraid, other countries. The key to understanding this is [that] this is a global movement with a global ideology and it is one struggle. It's one struggle with many different arenas."

Right on the dot, Blair says the following "when asked to explain why British public opinion is now considered the most anti-Israel in all of Europe, Blair falls back on the terrorism equation. "Look, there's criticism everywhere, I think, but that's partly because people don't understand how difficult this situation is when you come under attack, your civilians come under attack, and you're a democratic government and you're expected to respond. I mean, we face this continually. We face it now, actually, in places like Afghanistan."

No doubt, when the West European democracies remain far away from being under almost daily threat and attack, they have little incentive to appreciate Israel's predicament and can easily be influenced by the propaganda of the Unholy Alliance.This is a long road and peace in the form of cessation of armed hostilities need to be the first target.

You canread the whole interview here:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1141080.html

Despite insidious assaults to revise Jewish history to maintain the Palestinian myth by the Arabists as well as the vicious attempts from within the Israeli academia by the likes of Shlomo Sand (that Jewish people were invented!), the archeological evidence keep surfacing up... Below is that latest one, evidencing King David's reign.The deciphered text will ring a bell in all of us, for sure.

"Prof. Gershon Galil of the Department of Biblical Studies at the University of Haifa recently deciphered an inscription dating from the 10th century BCE, and showed that it was a Hebrew inscription, making it the earliest known Hebrew writing.

This breakthrough indicates that at least some of the scriptures were composed hundreds of years before the dates previously believed, and that the Kingdom of Israel already existed at that time. The 10th century BCE was the period of King David's reign.

The inscription itself, which was written in ink on a 15 cm X 16.5 cm trapezoid pottery shard, was discovered a year and a half ago at excavations that were carried out by Prof. Yosef Garfinkel at Khirbet Qeiyafa near the Elah Valley.

Though it was dated to the 10th century BCE, it was not immediately clear whether it was written in Hebrew or another local language.

Prof. Galil's deciphering of the ancient writing testifies to its being Hebrew, based on the use of verbs particular to the Hebrewlanguage, and content specific to Hebrew culture and not adopted by any other cultures in the region.

"This text is a social statement, relating to slaves, widows and orphans," Prof. Galil explained. "It uses verbs that were characteristic of Hebrew, such as asa ("did") and avad ("worked"), which were rarely used in other regional languages. Particular words that appear in the text, such as almana ("widow") are specific to Hebrew and are written differently in other local languages.

" The deciphered text:

1 you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord].

2 Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an]

3 [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and]

4 the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king.

5 Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger.

Once this deciphering is confirmed, Prof. Galil added, the inscription will become the earliest Hebrew inscription to be found, testifying to Hebrew writing abilities as early as the 10th century BCE."

See here

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1262339428603&pagename=JPArti...

and here

http://www.therichmarksentinel.com/rs_headlines.asp?recid=3645

Apparently this week is the Israel Anti-Apertheid week in college campuses all around the world. Naturally, the main objective is to demonize and delegitimize Israel with extreme double standard (in perfect conformity with Nathan Sharansky's 3-D test of antisemitism)- through the organizers' call for BDS (boycott, divest and sanction) Israel.(Hat off to Evelyn Gordon reporting in The Commentary).

Ha'aretz, Israel's center-Left paper (harboring quite a few Indecent Leftists) reports:

"LONDON - A filmmaker, anthropologist and economic researcher are among those headlining events marking what pro-Palestinian organizers have declared as "Israeli Apartheid Week" - and all three speakers are Israeli.

University campuses in more than 40 cities around the world are marking the week with lectures, films, multimedia events, cultural performances and demonstrations.

Since they were first launched in 2005, the events have become some of "the most important global events in the Palestine solidarity calendar," according to its organizers.

Its aim, they state on their Web site, is to "contribute to this chorus of international opposition to Israeli apartheid and to bolster support for the boycotts, divestments and sanctions (BDS) campaign.

"
Though many of the details about those events were not being promoted on the Apartheid Week Web site, it did list several events being offered by Israelis.

Among them is Shir Hever, an economic researcher at the Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem, who is scheduled to give a series of lectures at the University of Amsterdam entitled "Could the Economic Policies of Israel be Considered a Form of Apartheid?"

In addition, Israeli activist and filmmaker Shai Carmeli-Pollak is screening his 2006 documentary "Bil'in Habibti," about Israel Defense Forces violence, at Boston-area universities.

Jeff Halper, the Israel-based professor of anthropology who is co-founder and coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, was scheduled to speak on "Israeli Apartheid: The Case For BDS" at Glasgow University."

It is The Unholy Alliance preaching Palestinianism,its standard fare to vilify Israel to the extent constantly and all over the place. The ultimate objective is to eradicate Medinat Israel by rallying the global public opinion, the global institutions and countries behind. Unfortunately, some Israelis subscribe to the chorus vying for the destruction of the State of Israel.

As I've pointed out before the Indecent Left has been a key component of the The Unholy Alliance.

However, it seems that there are cases when the people of goodwill from both sides of the center can unite against this nihilistic Alliance. Provincial Government of Ontario voted for a unanimous resolution to condemn the events. Not only that but the sentiments expressed in the debate are most heartening to hear as the voice of reason and goodwill from center-Right and center Left. Here is an excerpt:

"Mr. Peter Shurman: I move that in the opinion of this House, the term "Israeli Apartheid Week" is condemned as it serves to incite hatred against Israel, a democratic state that respects the rule of law and human rights, and the use of the word "apartheid" in this context diminishes the suffering of those who were victims of a true apartheid regime in South Africa.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Pursuant to standing order 98, the member has 12 minutes for his presentation.

Mr. Peter Shurman: We debate some interesting things in this chamber, not always what appear to be provincial business. One might think that my resolution falls into that category. But since Israeli Apartheid Week takes place next week on campuses across Ontario, I submit that it very much concerns us in this place and should concern all fair-minded Ontarians.

Resolutions here do one thing only: They send a message, moral suasion pertinent to any given subject. I am passionate about my resolution today and the subject, Israeli Apartheid Week. I am the MPP for Thornhill. Over 40% of my constituents are Jewish. Understandably, there is broad support for Israel in Thornhill, and not just in Thornhill and not just among Jewish people. I have been approached to champion this cause in and outside of Thornhill, and on and off college campuses all over Ontario, and I'm very happy to do so.

I am sick and tired of the demonization of Israel by the use of a word that was only ever applied in one historical case and remains applicable only to that one period of South African history. In honesty, I, along with all colleague MPPs, have been approached as well by those not in agreement with this resolution. I say here and now that I reject their position out of hand.

This is a resolution that is entirely appropriate for discussion in our Ontario Legislature. It's about an annual event in our province on our campuses, and most significantly it's about our values, because our values are the same as the values of the state of Israel: democracy, education, individual freedom, human rights and the right to defend oneself from aggressors.

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In fact, the values of Judaism and of Israel were bedrock values for the foundation of Canada, and those values from Judaism and from Israel date back over 3,000 years-all to say that if you're going to label Israel as apartheid, then you are also calling Canada apartheid and you are attacking Canadian values. The use of the phrase "Israeli Apartheid Week" is about as close to hate speech as one can get without being arrested, and I'm not certain it doesn't actually cross over that line.

It's also a thinly veiled campaign by those whose real agenda is to eradicate Israel entirely. During the last week, I read an online blog or journal-there are, sadly, many like it-and I'll quote from it. Bear in mind that this is not a secret website. It came to me because I am personally mentioned in it, and that simply triggered a Google alert. It's called ziofascism.net. Now quoting:

Israel is a terrorist, apartheid state that bombs civilian neighbourhoods and hospitals, and engages in ethnic cleansing against its enemies and covert terror against its `friends.'
"In Canada, the Israel Lobby-a web of organizations presided over by a handful of Jewish billionaires, who head the nominal `Jewish groups' that together with media that is owned by some of the same billionaires-has shaped Canada's policy to favour Israel's security interests at the expense of Canada's."

Pure garbage-and Israeli Apartheid Week the same."

See more here.
http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/house-proceedings/hansard_search.jsp?searchString=apartheid&go=Search&locale=en