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Sarajevo haggadah

Antaea Darom

Israeli women's art

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Torah as music

Ben Heine

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ceramic bowl

Mohammad Said Kalash, "Offering Reconciliation" exhibit (photo: Ilan Amihai)

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Punch and Judy/Pinchas and Jamila

Avi Katz

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David Grossman

Ben Heine

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Eldrige Street shul

Lower East Side

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Dove

Ben Heine

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Two birds

Hoda Jamal

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Israeli and Palestinian boys

from documentary, Promises

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Cat in the Hat

Yiddish version

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Daylight through the Wall

Banksy: graffiti art on Separation Wall

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Maurice Sendak's Brundibar set

New Victory Theater (photo: Nan Melville/NYT)

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Daniel Barenboim, West-Eastern Divan Orchestra

Palestinian-Israeli musical ensemble (photo: Kerstin Joensson/AP)

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Great Day on Eldrige Street

N.Y.'s klezmer greats celebrate shul rededication (photo: Leo Sorel)

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Joint Appeal for Peace

(Avi Katz)

Joint Appeal for Peace

Ketubah, Ancona, Italy (1772)

(Jewish Theological Seminary library)

Ancona ketubah

Archive for May, 2010

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Chomsky to Deliver Bir Zeit Lecture on Al Jazeera

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

Well, maybe this will teach the petty bureaucrats at the Israeli Interior Ministry a lesson.  After lecturing him for four hours on the errors of his ways in criticizing Israel and telling him what he could or should do to be allowed admittance, they sent Prof. Noam Chomsky packing back to Amman.  Later, Israeli PR flacks attempted to backtrack by lying and claiming it was all a clerical error by a desk jockey the Allenby Bridge.  Still later, they offered to allow him back into the West Bank (which isn’t Israel last I checked, even by Israel’s standards, so why should they even be determining who enters Palestinian territory?).  When Chomsky inquired about whether this was a bona fide official guarantee of entry he discovered it wasn’t.  Israel is just playing games.

But Chomsky, not to be played the fool, has delightfully one-upped them all.  He’s going to deliver his Bir Zeit lecture via video conference from Amman and it will be telecast live on Al Jazeera.  That way it will reach an audience thousands of times larger than the original lecture would have.  Since Al Jazeera is available in Israel, perhaps even Israeli citizens will be able to watch him take apart the hypocrisy and brustishness of Israeli policy and Occupation.

This is the problem with Israeli policy and with all authoritarian regimes (which the Occupation certainly is).  It thinks of the short term benefit, not the long term.  It thinks of tactics instead of strategies.  It puts a finger in the dyke but does nothing to preserve the ecosystem itself.

On a related note, Haaretz columnist Brad Burston has written a typically eloquent, soul-searching cri de coeur about the ugly rise of fascism inside Israel.  Lest my right-wing readers jump on Burston as a typically left-wing commentator, this is simply untrue.  Burston made aliyah decades ago and joined Kibbutz Gezer, where I myself visited when I studied in Israel.  He has impeccable credentials as a liberal Zionist.  So for him to be writing so openly using such strong language should tell us that the canary is singing in the coal mine that is Israeli “democracy.”  Israel is a nation under threat.  Even perhaps a nation beginning to implode under our very eyes from the heap of self-contradictions under which it labors.

elvis costello

Elvis Costello withdraws from Israel concerts (James O'Mara)


I was delighted to read that Elvis Costello, a performer I admire greatly, has cancelled his Israel performances on his upcoming tour.  He wrote a remarkably sensitive, balanced account of his decision which acknowledges that the decision is morally conflicted but had to be made nevertheless:

It is after considerable contemplation that I have lately arrived at the decision that I must withdraw from the two performances scheduled in Israel on the 30th of June and the 1st of July.

One lives in hope that music is more than mere noise, filling up idle time, whether intending to elate or lament.

Then there are occasions when merely having your name added to a concert schedule may be interpreted as a political act that resonates more than anything that might be sung and it may be assumed that one has no mind for the suffering of the innocent.

…If these subjects are actually too grave and complex to be addressed in a concert, then it is also quite impossible to simply look the other way.

…I am not taking this decision lightly or so I may stand beneath any banner, nor is it one in which I imagine myself to possess any unique or eternal truth.

It is a matter of instinct and conscience.

…Sometimes a silence in music is better than adding to the static and so an end to it.

I cannot imagine receiving another invitation to perform in Israel, which is a matter of regret but I can imagine a better time when I would not be writing this.

With the hope for peace and understanding. Elvis Costello

Haaretz notes that Santana and Gil Scott Heron have also joined in the protest by cancelling their own performances.  I hope other performers will read Costello’s nuanced, humble and carefully articulated statement in full.  It gives them much to ponder.  I too want to make clear that I do not support such a decision as a means of harming Israelis, especially those who share a critique of Occupation.  This is a political act, not one of petty vindictiveness.  Of course, many Israelis will mistakenly take it as the latter.  This is not an act that ultimately seeks harm to Israel or God forbid, it’s destruction.  It is a moral statement that tells Israel that the rest of the world will no longer sit idly by.  That if Israel wishes to continue down this road, a price will be paid in isolation.  And that when Israel ends Occupation, then that price will be redeemed and Israel’s status will be restored.

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Bibi on Barring Chomsky: ‘I Read it in the News Today, Oh Boy’

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

Well, one thing we know…Bibi reads the papers (Bibiton-Yisrael HaYom at least): that’s apparently how he learns of major decisions made by his own Interior Ministry to bar one of the most distinguished linguists in the world from entering the West Bank to lecture at Bir Zeit University.  You wouldn’t think he’d hear it from his own minister, would you?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that he had learned of the decision not to allow Noam Chomsky to enter Israel from the press…

“We read about it in the paper,” Netanyahu said during a Knesset session…

This is a classic case of passing the buck as far down the line as you can go.  Was the decision to bar the enimnent Dr. Chomsky made my a senior official?  Hell no, Israel always allows junior officers manning a desk at the Allenby Bridge to make such judgments independently:

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “There is no change in our policy. The idea that Israel is preventing people from entering whose opinions are critical of the state is ludicrous; it is not happening. This was a mishap. A guy at the border overstepped his authority.”

Regev suggested that if Chomsky tried to enter Israel again, he would succeed.

I think Israel punished the 81 year old Chomsky enough interrogating him for 4 hours after he’d made the trek from Boston to Amman and thence to the Allenby Bridge.  Why would he want to be put through this nonsense again just to enable Israel to say it did the right thing (finally) by admitting him?

People who are writing about this incident are getting it wrong when they say Chomsky was denied entry to Israel.  He was denied entry to the West Bank, which is not Israel.  Israel should have no right to determine who enters Palestinian territory via the Allenby Bridge.  This should be controlled by the PA.

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Dershowitz: Arabs’ ‘Dead Baby Strategy’

Monday, May 17th, 2010

Shorter Dershowitz: the Arabs make us kill their babies and then use them as propaganda against us.

A remarkable video offered by settler affiliated Arutz Sheva provides a peek into the jumbled mind of Israel’s foremost hasbarist fantasist.  Dersh was speaking at a conference organized by Tel Aviv University the same weekend that he received an honorary degree for his valiant defense of Israel against the noxious anti-Israel hordes.  Note the ironies and outright lies screaming out from the page.  Here are some salient quotes:

…The world should be praising Israel.  Has any country in history ever contributed as much to the world as Israel in 62 years?…In 62 years, the number of lives it has saved…The world should be coming to Israel and saying: Thank you, thank you, thank you instead of trying to delegitimate [sic].

…A variation on Holocaust denial is central to the anti-Israel critique.

…There is a direct connection between [World War II-era Palestinian Nazi supporter] Haj al Husseini and some of the organizations today which seek Israel’s delegitimation. [sic]  People [on college campuses] just close their ears [when they hear this argument].  It’s as if they’re on Planet Chomsky.

Then there is military delegitimation. [sic]  It is such a clever–if it weren’t such a horrible technique.  Again, I have a name for it.  I call it Hamas and Hezbollah’s “dead baby strategy.”  It sounds cruel.  But it’s very, very simple.  The most powerful image in the media is a mother holding a dead baby.

What Hamas and Hezbollah know is that if they fire enough rockets at Israeli children…they know eventually any democracy will have to respond.  How do you respond?  You try to get the rocket firings. [sic]  And where do they put the rockets?  You wouldn’t know it if you read the Goldstone Report…but right in the middle of civilian populations.  The goal is to induce Israel to kill as many babies as possible.  The object is to have Al Jazeera there to photograph the dead baby.  You can’t hear what I’m saying when you have those powerful visual images.

As to which country [Israel] has the best record of protecting civilians–not the second or third or fourth–but the best record…And when the worst is called the best and the best is called the worst nothing can be a greater defeat for human rights.

Our greatest enemies are not the Islamist extremists.  They help our case.  The problem is Jews.  Jews and Israelis. [applause]  It’s this argument by  ethnic identification.  You get a man like Norman Finkelstein who has never identified as a Jew.  A fervent anti-Jew in addition to being anti-Israel.  Never identified as a Jew.  But for purposes of attacking Israel he says, “I’m Jewish and therefore you have to give me more credibility.”

Among other ludicrous statements he made, he called Tel Aviv University Prof. Rachel Giora, a “censorial Stalinist” because he alleges that in supporting BDS she supports the stifling of free speech.

Mitchell Plitnick perhaps said it best:

Never think for a second that Alan Dershowitz has sunk as low as he can go. He’ll always surprise you.

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Im Tirtzu is NOT, Repeat NOT a Bunch of Jack-Booted Right-Wing Thugs!

Monday, May 17th, 2010
im tirtzu parody

Im Tirtzu parody site ("Whether You Want it or Not")

Got that? You better. ‘Cause if you don’t or if you have any other opinion on the matter Ronen Shoval, founder of the Israeli hasbara outfit will set you straight; or else sue your ass off. I don’t know if Ronen has considered how he can do that to those outside Israel, but considering how many Israelis he’s threatened with lawsuits if they bad-mouth the group, he’ll undoubtedly find a way to sic someone on me as well. But like Didi Remez, one of those he’s threatened, I have no fear of his thuggery.

Ronen Shova

Ronen Shoval, Herzl's capo di tutti (Yanai Yechiel)

There’s a lot of interesting matters to report about the thugs who parodied New Israel Fund chair, Naomi Chazan by displaying a rhino horn on her head in ads which accused her and NIF of being traitors to the State of Israel for cooperating with the Goldstone Report (NIF didn’t, though some of its grantees did).

Those of you who know and use Wikipedia may think of it as a repository of online information, a sort of freewheeling encyclopedia of knowledge.  Everywhere but Israel that is.  Partly because of excessive editorial caution, partly because of a societal fear of violating political consensus, and partly because of legal blackmail, Hebrew Wikipedia shies away from a number of controversial subjects.  I wrote here that it removed an article about Anat Kamm and refused to publish anything until well after the gag order about her arrest was lifted (a number of us interested in the subject made sure there was an English Wikipedia entry).

Now, Wikipedia has also removed an article about Im Tirtzu under threat of lawsuit if it calls the group “right-wing.”  The editors refuse this concession and their only recourse seems to be to remain silent on the entire issue.  You can’t find any article about the group in Hebrew Wikipedia.  I’m not enough of a Wikipedian to know how the various editions are run and how each edition relates to the broader Wikipedia movement, but it seems to me that Hebrew Wikipedia falls far short of the free-wheeling, authority-defying standards that I’ve always thought the broader project represented.

I cannot exert any pressure on the contents or editors of Hebrew Wikipedia.  I doubt they know or care what I have to say.  But I will certainly report its deficiencies to my readers and hope that they will make my views known within an Israeli context.

Let’s tell it like it is.  Ronen Shoval is a thug.  Maybe he’s not a thug in the sense of beating Naomi Hazan up in a dark alley in Tel Aviv and sending her to the hospital.  But he’s a garden-variety political thug.  Thugs threaten.  They bully.  They use the system to get what they want.  They confront.  They get in your face.  So what do you do if you’re a target of these biryonim?  Do you remain silent?  Do you worry about lawyer’s fees?  Do you back down?  Hell no.  Not unless you want them to redouble their attacks on you.

You stand toe to toe and face to face.  You let them know you will defend your position b’chol m’odecha (“everything in your power”).  You let them know if they want to draw metaphoric blood their’s will be mixed with yours.  I tell them if they want to threaten to sue, bring it on (just as Didi has done, kol hakavod lo ["more power to him"]).

Shoval, or whoever directs or advises him, might want to consider that vacant threats of legal action tend to provoke precisely the types of hostile responses to Im Tirtzu which bring on the threats to begin with.

So here’s something else to stew over Ronen.  This blog has reported that It Tirtzu received $200,000 over two years from John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel.  Hagee, the apocalyptic “not-one-inch” Christian Zionist boasts about contributing millions to Israel.  I’ve listed a good deal of his settler and right-wing grantees.

Yossi Gurvitz reveals in his Israeli blog that Im Tirtzu is using the American Jewish settler group, the Central Fund of Israel, as its pass-through 501c3 which enables U.S. donors to receive a tax-deduction in return for their support for right wing Israeli political thuggery.  Since Im Tirtzu is a fairly new organization, there will not yet be an IRS 990 record of how much the group will receive from CFI.  But considering the latter raised $47-million in 2008, the amount could be sizable.  Undoubtedly, a chunk of it will go to pay Im Tirtzu’s lawyer’s fees for all the Israelis and American Jews they plan to sue for slander.

In case you hadn’t heard of CFI or don’t believe my claims about them.  Here are some of the wonderful enterprises they’ve funded:  Honenu, which provides legal representation for Jewish terrorists like Yigal Amir and Jack Teitel and lobbies for their release from prison.  Women in Green, whose leader, Nadia Matar, supported the assassination of Mahmoud Abbas during a speech she gave at a Manhattan shul a few years ago.  Over a half-million dollars of these funds went to support “security” for Israeli settlements which can include anything from K-9 attack dogs to communication gear to Uzis.

As Yossi Gurvitz says, if something looks like a right-wing duck and walks and talks like one then it is one:

Im Tirzu’s masquerading as a centrist movement, while it feeds at the trough of an extreme right wing fundraising society, should cast a shadow on each and every one of its claims.

Im Tirtzu is a danger to Israeli democracy.   Indeed its flourishing indicates something deeply rotten with the Israeli body politic.

For those who need a good, healthy dose of satire and who know some Hebrew, take yourself immediately to this parody site, Im Tirtzu Im Lo Tirzu (“Whether You Want It or Not,” a parody of the original Herzl-inspired name, “If You Will It”).  The parody site’s sub-title is: “The quiet fascist revolution.”  Shoval’s lawyers should be filing suit shortly…

Which brings me to the observation that the closer Israel gets to flat-out authoritarianism the stronger, sharper and more telling becomes the political satire.  This is how Vaclav Havel got his start before the Velvet Revolution took hold.  It must’ve been what it was like in the days of Sovet samizdat.  It’s probably like this in Ahmadinejad’s Iran.  Is this what Israel has come to?  Instead of the Prelude to a Kiss, it’s the prelude to full-blown rightist supremacy.  The Shin Bet will “advise” the prime minister, who will dutifully do as he is told.  Or better yet as in Russia, the prime minister might just as well BE a former officer in the intelligence services (that would be Tzipi Livni if she ever gets anywhere near the prime ministership, which is highly doubtful).

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Makhoul’s Attorneys Refuse to Appear in Court, Protest Lack of Due Process

Sunday, May 16th, 2010

Lawyers for Ameer Makhoul, director of the Israeli Palestinian NGO Ittijah, who was arrested two weeks ago in the dead of night on the vague, but grave espionage charge of meeting with a Hezbollah agent, have protested their inability to meet with him by refusing to appear at future court proceedings. I think this is a bold, but wise decision as it puts the court on record that the victims will no longer cooperate with the charade that they are facing justice properly administered in a fair and balanced democratic system.

It’s worth quoting at length from Adalah’s (the NGO which represents him) hard-hitting but eloquent statement in protest of the current legal limbo in which he is placed:

…The legal defense team of Ameer Makhoul declared that they would not participate in the detention hearing in the Petakh Tikvah Magistrate Court tomorrow, Monday 17 May, if the prohibition on meeting a lawyer is not lifted.

…Since 6 May, there have been two detention hearings before the Petakh Tikvah court. At both of these hearings, the detention was extended without Mr. Makhoul having the right to meet his lawyers…

He was brought to the court but was not allowed to appear at his own hearings. Secret information was exchanged between the court and the General Security Services (GSS or Shabak) at the hearings. Questions were asked and notes passed between the court and the Shabak. No information was given to his lawyers about the substance of the investigation or his personal health condition or the conditions of his detention. All this information was classified. Thus the court has in effect only heard the side of the Shabak.

The legal defense team is convinced that under these circumstances, due to the total lack of respect for due process, the representation of Ameer Makhoul in the detention hearings has become meaningless. In this instance, the legal system is a simply rubber stamp for the Shabak. It should be emphasized that the Supreme Court of Israel has never accepted an appeal against a ban on meeting with a lawyer.

Furthermore, as a result of Mr. Makhoul’s classification as a “security detainee”, he is exposed to harsh conditions of confinement and continuous investigation by the Shabak. In addition to being barred from meeting with his lawyers, he is also unable to meet his family (his wife Janan and their two daughters), and has no right to make a telephone call or send a letter. In addition there is no video or audio recording or full written record of the investigations to which he has been subjected over the last eleven days. These conditions, his almost complete isolation for the outside world and the violation of his right to due process are all conducive to torture and/or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

Ahad Ha’am, the visionary proponent of cultural Zionism, imagined Israel as a “light unto the nations.”  It is cases like this and policies like this that turn Israeli into a laughingstock among the nations. H/t Didi Remez.

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Israeli Interior Ministry Denies Chomsky West Bank Entry

Sunday, May 16th, 2010


Oops, it was all a big misunderstanding claims Eli Yishai’s Interior Ministry.  That’s what Al Jazeera claims the goons who denied Prof. Noam Chomsky entry into the West Bank at the Allenby crossing are now saying.  As Chomsky says in this interview, what could they have misunderstood?  Who he was?  Where he was going (to speak at Bir Zeit University)?

Here’s the government’s statement which should be read to see how bureaucracy functions so well in service of Occupation and its associated evils:

Sabine Haddad, a spokesperson for the Interior Ministry, confirmed to Haaretz that the officials at the border were from the ministry.

“Because he entered the Palestinian Authority territory only, his entry is the responsibility of the Office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories at the Defense Ministry. There was a misunderstanding on our side, and the matter was not brought to the attention of the COGAT.”

Haddad told Haaretz that “the minute the COGAT says that they do not object, Chomsky’s entry would have been permitted.”

So what she’s saying is that her own ministry official made a mistake in not passing off Chomsky’s entry to the Defense Ministry. If entry via the Allenby Bridge is supposed to be handled by the Defense Ministry, why was it handled by the wrong Ministry? Are there two types of entries there that are handled differently depending on the individual? It simply doesn’t pass the smell test.

Israel Radio quotes an apparently conflicting statement from the Interior Ministry specifying that Chomsky must access the West Bank through Ben Gurion Airport. Reading between the lines, aside from petty harrassment, this seems to be another attempt by Israel to compel Chomsky to concede that Israel controls the West Bank. Undoubtedly, they viewed his attempt at entering via Jordan as a way to deny Israeli sovereignty over the territory.

Given the alternate statements it makes you wonder who’s running the show, or whether anyone’s running the show at the Ministry. Joe Biden probably wondered the same thing the day he was buffaloed by the Ramat Shlomo announcement.

On days like today when Omar Said’s detention has been extended along with a prohibition against consulting his attorney, I tear my hair because there is too much about which to write.  Too much injustice.  Too much repression.  Too much fear.  Too much stupidity.

When Professor Chomsky, one of the world’s most distinguished linguists and a fierce critic of Israeli Occupation and policy, presented himself at the Allenby Bridge, he was grilled for hours about his intentions.  The official interrogating him made clear that they were refusing him entry because of his hostile views and because he was only speaking at Bir Zeit, but not in Israel (which he has often done).  The latter is a laughable criticism.  If Chomsky had been on his way to lecture at Bir Zeit and an Israeli university then they would have had grounds to claim that his views couldn’t be espoused within Israel without harming the security interests of the State.  Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

His interrogator consulted closely with his superiors in the Ministry.  So for Yishai’s minions to claim it was all a big misunderstanding is ludicrous.  They knew exactly what they were doing and did it.  It was about as much of a misunderstanding as Joe Biden’s snub at the hands of the same Ministry which had approved 1,600 new housing units in occupied East Jerusalem the day before he arrived in Israel.  All an accident, a big misunderstanding.  It’s almost like they’d put a shiv in between your ribs and watch you bleed to death all the while telling you it was all just a big misunderstanding.

Noam Sheizaf had one of the best summaries of the significance of this incident:

There is no arguing that Israel is now viewing certain ideas, not just actions, as existential threat, and is willing to make use of its powers in order to suppress them. It is important to understand this point: Some people think that the state made a stupid mistake today, when it chose to refuse Chomsky a visa. But that’s only true if you judge the affair in terms of actual security – then you conclude that making such a fuss over a speech in Ramallah by an aging linguistic that no one would even notice is pure madness. But if you are obsessed with the persecution of “dangerous ideas” and constantly searching for ideological menaces, then Chomsky is a threat. In this context, not allowing him to enter your country might be logical…but it is also scary is hell.

This comes on top of other nasty developments in the case of Omar Said and Ameer Makhoul.  Today, the Petah Tikvah kangaroo court extended Said’s remand for another six days, while Makhoul’s counsel announced that they would hereby cease participating in the legal charade that was his case since they had not been able to consult with him since his detention over two weeks ago. Adalah, the Israeli Palestinian NGO providing his legal representation said:

“Due to the utter lack of respect for due process, the representation of Ameer Makhoul in the detention hearings has become meaningless.”

What this proves is that there are at least two tiers of justice (possibly more).  One for Israelis involved in conventional legal cases and another for those involved in security cases.  Those caught up in the latter can expect minimal rights if any (cf. Anat Kamm).  And if you are a Palestinian Israeli citizen you can even those minimal rights to be truncated almost at will.

Neither Makhoul nor Said have seen any evidence against them.  They don’t know what they did that constituted espionage.  They haven’t seen the most elemental rights accorded to suspects in any case in a western democracy (unless you want to compare their treatment to enemy combatants at Guantanamo, but they aren’t even U.S. citizens and Makhoul and Said are).

As the headline of the Moderate Voice’s story (see link below) on this incident says, “Democracies do not fear ideas.”  I guess this one does, unless you want to argue that it isn’t a democracy, which Israel makes is easier and easier for its enemies to do.  Is this any way to run a democracy?  You bet it isn’t.

On dark days like today I can even laugh at the black humor in the title of a new Facebook group founded by one of the members of the Free Ameer Makhoul group I created: Together Toward Collective Suicide.

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Former Aipac Director Incites U.S. Government Against Goldstone

Saturday, May 15th, 2010

Neal Sher, a former Justice Department lawyer and Aipac director, has demanded that the U.S. government refuse admittance to Richard Goldstone as an undesirable.  Of course, the media outlet that announced this development is the home of pro-Israel incitement, the Jerusalem Post:

In a letter sent to US officials, Neal Sher, a former executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, said that recently disclosed information about Goldstone’s apartheid-era rulings raised questions about whether he was eligible to enter the United States. The letter was sent to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, US Attorney-General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

Individuals who admit to acts that constitute a crime of moral turpitude¨are ineligible to enter the US, Sher charged. The recent public revelations, to which Goldstone has reportedly admitted, would appear to fit within this provision. At a minimum, there is ample basis for federal authorities to initiate an investigation into this matter, Sher said.

…In his judicial position, according to Sher, Goldstone was instrumental in effectuating and legitimizing a regime universally known for its widespread human rights abuses.

Of course, all of this is a heap of steaming manure.  What I always enjoy in reading such attacks from the likes of Dershowitz and Sher is their utter indifference to black South Africans during the apartheid regime.  All of a sudden when Israel’s ox is being gored (in their view) , the pro-Israel crowd goes into high dudgeon on behalf of a group of people for whom they could previously have cared less.  You’ll also hear nary a peep out of these professional hasbarists about the nuclear and military assistance provided by Israel to the very same apartheid regime which was executing many more than the 28 victims of South African justice whose capital cases Richard Goldstone reviewed on appeal.

You also won’t hear a peep out of Sher-Dershowitz about the critical rulings Goldstone wrote which struck down the homelands policy, which was the keystone of the racist system.  It was this ruling that most experts agree spelled the beginning of the end of apartheid.  You won’t hear a peep from these pro-Israel jackals about Judge Goldstone’s stellar work on international courts seeking to redress the crimes committed in Rwanda and Kosovo.

The truth is that neither Dershowitz or Sher have the right to shine Goldstone’s shoes (I guess people don’t do this anymore, but you get the idea).  If anyone is ‘undesirable’ it is Sher and not Goldstone.  But as a citizen, we have to suffer Sher’s presence.  Having Judge Goldstone in this country, where he is teaching at Georgetown University, does honor to us and our justice system.  Neal Sher…not so much.

Make no mistake, this is incitement of the lowest form.  It should be impermissible for a responsible Jewish leader to make such statements and retain the respect of his colleagues in the leadership.  At least the Post does acknowledge that Sher’s ethical record has plenty of blemishes which make you wonder how he retains any credibility criticizing Judge Goldstone’s:

Sher had his own brush with trouble later, when he was investigated for misappropriating funds from the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims.

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Jaja’s Wife Denies Hezbollah Connection

Friday, May 14th, 2010

Note: I’ve decided that the name I’ve hitherto been spelling Geagea should be spelled ‘Jaja.’  There is a Hassan Jaja on Facebook (as well as a separate Hassan ‘Geagea’) who lists Razan Zuayter as a Friend.  She is the actual wife of Geagea/Jaja, which convinces me I should change the spelling of his name to Jaja.

Thanks to some intrepid sources, who’ve done some great research for this post on the ties between Hassan Jaja and Omar Said, which the Shin Bet lamely claims dealt with recruiting the latter to spy for Hezbollah against Israel.

Jaja founded the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature, whose mission is to the repair environmental damage caused by Israel’s wars in Lebanon and Gaza.  He also maintains a professional interest in farming and Arab traditional medicine and owns Sanabel, a Jordanian nursery and landscape design business.  As part of his engagement with herbal medicine, he spoke at First Regional Scientific Conference on Traditional Arab and Islamic Medicine (Amman, Jordan August 8-10, 2007).  Said Omar also presented a talk at the same meeting.  This could be the contact the Shin Bet is lamely calling Said’s recruitment into the dastardly clutches of Hezbollah.

Rechavia  Berman and I have been joking that the danger Jaja presents to Israel must have something to do with his deadly abilities with a garden shear.  Something like the IDF’s krav maga in the garden.  Or perhaps he’s an Arab Edward Scissorhands.

It just occurred to me that Israel’s spookerati would have us believe that Hassan Jaja is recruiting Hezbollah spies in Jordan under the noses of the Jordanian security services.  Why, in heaven’s name would King Abdullah let that happen?  Why would Jordan have any interest in allowing anything on its soil that would assist Hezbollah?  Is Hassan Nasrallah opening a new Jordanian beachhead in his campaign to obliterate the Jewish entity??  The very notion is preposterous.

Another point of interest is that the meeting between Jamal Juma’a and Jaja which led to the former’s arrest by the S.B. took place shortly after this in October, 2007.

Hassan Jaja’s wife is Razan Zuayter.  She is also the daughter of distinguished Palestinian historian Akram Zaitar.  Zuayter published a letter in the Arab newspaper, Al Ghad, in which she categorically denies any connection between her husband and Hezbollah:

…This [the Shin Bet's claim that Jaja is a Hezbollah agent] is completely and totally false and the relationship with [Makhoul and Said] is a professional one with the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature that I head, and whose message is the protection of natural and agricultural resources in the Arab nation especially in areas suffering from wars and occupation. All its [APN] projects are openly announced in its monthly media publication and provided on its website. The claim that Hassan Ja’Ja’,…is in contact with Hizbullah is a…lie whose…goal is to cut off peaceful cooperation between us and occupied Palestine. It is also part of the narrowing [of political space inflicted by the security services] on members of civil society in Palestine and stopping their peaceful defense of their people’s rights and freedom. (translation Rechavia Berman)

One of the potential goals of this harassment is to break any sense of solidarity between Palestinians living within Israel and those in the Diaspora.    Once again, this appears of a piece with Yuval Diskin’s long-term goal, publicly announced in 2007 of breaking the back of the Israeli Palestinian nationalist movement.  I’d like my American readers to imagine a scenario in which the FBI investigated and criminalized American Jewish contacts with Israeli NGOs.  We simply wouldn’t stand for it.  Why should Israeli Palestinians?  Of course, the difference between here and there is that our system has checks and balances and we have a Congress (or at least some members of that body) who would frown on such spook activism.  In Israel, no Knesset member would criticize such persecution.  Have you heard of any Jewish Knesset member who has expressed a shred of concern for the welfare of these two Israeli citizens?

A number of readers and observers of this case have remarked about their fear that the S.B. has another more damaging rabbit up its sleeve than Hassan Geagea (my apologies to Mr. Jaja for using such a metaphor but it is intended as a comment on the S.B.’s attitudes and not on him).  Rechavia Berman has joked about Nasrallah’s cousin being their ace in the hole, which they’ll trot out with a huge puff of smoke.  Personally, I haven’t been that impressed with the manner of S.B. investigations.  They don’t seem to have that level of sophistication.  Their M.O. seems to throw everything at the victim and hope something sticks.  Then when it doesn’t they go after the next hapless victim.

Haaretz’s excised passage did note that the security agency did have a series of forbidden contacts with which it might charge Makhoul.  I’d dearly like to know who those might be if there are indeed any others (there may not be).

If anyone wants to see an example of half-assed journalism, you can read Jackie Khoury’s Haaretz report (Hebrew) about the letter by Razan Zuayter which I reported above.  Of course, since it’s under gag he can’t report Jaja’s or Zuayter’s name.  But apparently, he can’t report that half the world and many Israelis included already know these names because of YouPost and this blog.  I’ve complained to Khoury, but most editors and reporters at Haaretz don’t really seem to give a damn about what their readers (or at least THIS reader) think about anything.

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