Janet Napolitano will be visiting Israel in the coming days and plans to meet with Israeli airport security officials because they do such a sterling job of rooting out Arab terror by profiling any traveler with any personal quality or characteristic that smacks remotely of being Arab or an Arab sympathizer. That’s sure a perspective we want to introduce into American airline screening procedures. Racial profiling…yup, that’s a concept whose time has come.
And while she’s at it, Napolitano might want to begin making discreet inquiries about a possible future visit to Israel by her boss, Pres. Obama. It seems that his middle name will be a dead giveaway to Israeli security agents to give him the treatment regarding his entirely suspicious background: born in an African partly-Muslim country, Arab middle name, dark skin, clearly pro-Palestinian views, hobnobbing with suspected terrorists, previous visits to Arab countries, etc. Remember what they did to Donna Shalala? And she was coming to Israel to address an anti-BDS conference! While Napolitano is at it she should make sure that there’s no Arab ancestry in her Italian background. And get rid of any visits to Arab countries on her passport. It might raise red flags when she goes through security herself.
It would be a tad embarrassing if, after Air Force One lands at Ben Gurion instead of a triumphal President descending the plane’s stairway to a smiling reception from Prime Minster Netanyahu and his cabinet, instead he’s greeted by some Shabak flunkies who enter the plane, refuse to let him disembark, and pester him with questions and challenges about his suspect past.
It appears that Napolitano has drunk the Kool Aid offered by Israeli security consultants who, after two recent U.S. airline terror scares, were trying to peddle the notion that Israeli security procedures were far superior at rooting out the rotten Arab apples. What will it take to put this ridiculous notion to rest? Perhaps a stab in the heart like the killing of Dracula? Oops, this will get me in trouble if I ever try to enter Israel myself again. I’ve appeared to advocate violence against Israeli security procedures. Just in case, let me point out that this was a metaphorical statement. I don’t like the procedures. Stabbing them through the heart was a figure of speech. Though I doubt Shabak agents have ever studied literature or even rhetoric so the nuance will be lost on them.
Moshe Ben Zikri, Jerusalem council leader, believer in Jewish racial purity and superiority (Ron Shmueli)
The Jerusalem settlement of Pisgat Ze’ev, named for rightist Revisionist leader Zeev Jabotinsky, knows how to handle Arabs. Just take it from Moshe Ben Zikri, recently elected “community adminstrator” (in Chicago he’d be called the ward boss or council leader) for the neighborhood. His most critical task: fighting the Arab menace, the campaign to take control of the community from its rightful Jewish residents. How will he do this? By levying a hefty $30,000 fine on any resident who sells an apartment to an unapproved tenant. Who approves? The Jewish residents, of course.
Among Ben Zikri’s convictions: that there is an Arab “fire” (yes, it appears the Carmel fire has become the reference du jour in the Israeli press) consuming Pisgat Ze’ev. His goal? To keep the neighborhood Jewish. That means, Arabs raus. Local Jewish hoodlums burned down Palestinian stores and beat up mixed couples who met there or just plain Arab teenagers who wanted to go to the mall. Ben Zikri, of course, denies any connection to such violence. It’s all good Germans, er Jews taking matters into their own hands without any direction from him. The Shabak however, may disagree, since it summoned him for a chat a few months ago.
That seems not to have prevented residents from awarding four of the nine local council seats to Zikari’s faction, which won him the top job. This means he is an elected official with a government budget representing the citizens of not just his neighborhood, but all of Jerusalem and by extension, Israel. It would be as if David Duke actually won that election when he ran for governor of Louisiana.
I told them the truth. That our enemies are taking control. Our girls are falling into their snares. And good residents are simply leaving when they discover they have an Arab neighbor.
For some history: in 2004, Israeli built the Separation Wall to separate Pisgat Ze’ev from the West Bank. As a result, East Jerusalem Palestinian residents found the neighborhood a desirable one and moved in in numbers. This is the alien influx that worries Herr Ben Zikri so, who estimates their are currently 550 Arab families polluting the Jewish gene pool:
The come here with the goal of conquering us from within. This might take the form of crime. or perhaps just the “taking” of our women. Then they make war against us. People sell their apartments to Arabs and that’s how they’ll take over building by building. Our goal is to keep the neighborhood Jewish so our girls won’t find themselves married and living in the [Arab] villages across the Shuafat highway.
He plans to force residents to sign a legal document that ensures that owners cannot sell to an unapproved buyer, otherwise they are subject to the fine. All nice and legal according to him. Isn’t it nice when you can exploit the law to enforce Kahanist/Nazi-type notions of racial purity like this?
IDF soldier points gun at Palestinian outside Bethlehem, showing 'em who's boss at the checkpoint (Musa Al-Shaer/AFP/Getty Images)
Not content with having razed thousands of Palestinian villages during the Nakba, converting the names of thousands of places from Arabic to Hebrew names, and now Judaizing Palestinian East Jerusalem, the incoming deputy chief of staff, Yair Naveh (whose security lapses allowed Anat Kamm to reproduce thousands of top secret IDF documents, for which he received no reprimand or even investigation), will be “converting” the names of Israeli checkpoints from their original Arabic to Hebrew names. For example, Nilin, the site of ferocious anti-Wall protests, will become Kiryat HaSefer. It reminds me of the kashering of one’s home before Pesach to ensure it will be pristine and pure for the coming holiday.
The IDF’s reasoning according to the Maariv story?
The Hebrew names will convey to Palestinians the message of Israeli control…It will also convey to the soldiers and border crossing personnel that they are not protecting a Palestinian area, but Israeli territory.
Yes, this is some of the bold, innovative strategic thinking we can expect out of the incoming regime of Yoav Galant and Yair Naveh. Name changes. That’s the key to IDF control of the Palestinians. The latter will certainly be cowed by this new development and undoubtedly it will have a deep impact on their very psyches.
Israel doesn’t merely occupy territory, it also occupies the linguistic space as well, attempting to “convert” place names from Muslim/Arabic to Jewish/Hebrew.
Donors Trust Fund: 'building a legacy of liberty' by spitting on America's Muslims and meddling in a presidential election campaign
Counterpunch has published an exposé about the Clarion Fund that takes the story to the next level. This is a development I’ve been awaiting for two years. We knew that Clarion was the ostensible producer of the three anti-Muslim films, Third Jihad, Obsession and the latest, Iranium (watch the unintentionally hilarious trailer). But we didn’t know who specifically financed the films. Now, we still don’t know specifically whom, but Pam Gartens has taken us right up to his doorstep and rung the doorbell.
Iranium: the movie
Turns out that in 2008, when Clarion sent 20 million copies of Obsession to households in swing states a few weeks before the presidential election, they didn’t do this alone. Gartens estimates that the DVD reproduction and advertising costs amounted to somewhere in the neighborhood of $17-million. This money came to Clarion via the Donors Capital Fund, a non-profit libertarian front group (“providing asset management for…capital dedicated to the pursuit of liberty”) closely associated with the interests of the Koch family:
There are shades of Charles Koch all over Donors Capital and Donors Trust. Two grantees receiving repeat and sizeable grants from Donors Capital are favorites of the Koch foundations: George Mason University Foundation and Institute for Humane Studies. Another tie is Claire Kittle. A project of Donor’s Trust is Talent Market.org, a headhunter for staffing nonprofits with the “right” people. Ms. Kittle serves as Talent Market’s Executive Director and was the former Program Officer for Leadership and Talent Development at the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. Then there is Whitney Ball, President of both Donors Capital Fund and Donors Trust. Ms. Ball was one of the elite guests at the invitation-only secret Aspen bash thrown by Charles Koch in June of this year, as reported by ThinkProgress.org. Also on the guest list for the Koch bash was Stephen Moore, a member of the Editorial Board at the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Moore is a Director at Donors Capital Fund. Rounding out the ties that bind is Lauren Vander Heyden, who serves as Client Services Coordinator at Donors Trust. Ms. Vander Heyden previously worked as grants coordinator and policy analyst at the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.
Its 990 form reveals (page 33) that it gave an $18-million grant to Clarion Fund in 2008. It was by far the largest grant distributed that year, amounting to about 25% of the total grants.
There are several aspects of this that shock me. I always figured Shelly Adelson or Irwin Katsof, billionaires much more closely associated both with pro-Israel and anti-jihadi political forces, to be the suspect donors. This latest news takes things in a far more radical libertarian direction, and generally Jews have stayed clear of right-wing libertarianism because it’s always had a whiff of anti-Semitism about it (cf. Rand Paul). While the Koch family is Jewish, their philanthropy has never been visible in that community nor has their interest in far-right Israeli politics been evident.
I can tell you one person who ain’t the donor: George Soros. But I wonder if Eli Lake will be as dogged in pursuing the identity of Clarion’s sugar-baby as he was in pursuing J Street’s?
Though Garten has done a great service in tracing this as far as she has, the problem is that DonorsTrust (minimum gift: $1-million) has created yet another veil behind which another donor is concealed. We thought all we had to do before was figure out which individual funded the Clarion films. We didn’t realize that there could be further subterfuge. And, in fact the Trust trumpets as one of its primary benefits that it shields it’s participants identity behind a shroud:
Privacy is very important to me and at times it’s been hard to do my charitable giving in a way that’s discreet.
My private foundation was beneficial for tax benefits and administration but completely failed when it came to privacy since all private foundation tax forms are available to the general public on the Internet. That’s why I set up a DonorsTrust donor-advised account. My contributions to DonorsTrust are not public information and the grants I recommend from DonorsTrust can remain completely anonymous.
It makes you wonder why such a donor would feel the need for secrecy (or “privacy,” as they call it)? I’m just an old-fashioned former non-profit fundraiser who believes in transparency and standing behind your philanthropic commitments. I find secrecy in philanthropy to be objectionable. It just makes you wonder what they’re hiding and why.
In the case of the Clarion gift, this is even more evident and problematic since a grant from a non-profit charitable foundation was used in an overtly political manner to influence a presidential election. Given the Koch family’s massive presence in the current election cycle, the fact that DonorsTrust used non-profits it funded to produce films assaulting Islam and endorsing a presidential candidate (one of the Clarion websites promoting Obsession rated McCain far better on security issues than Obama) stinks to high heaven.
CAIR has already demanded that the IRS investigate Clarion for these reasons. Now it seems it should expand the demand to include DonorsTrust as well.
I have to say Garten’s speculation concerning David Horowitz as a donor suspect seems far-fetched. He doesn’t have that kind of dough and I doubt he has access to it from well-heeled allies either.
I have been surprised by the fact that Clarion hasn’t used Iranium in the same way this election cycle that it did Obsession in 2008. I expected another DVD blitz in voters’ mailboxes right about now. So far it hasn’t materialized. Could it be that their Obsession donor didn’t spring for another $18-million PR blitz?
As I was trying to think of a title for this post that related to the school, which is the subject of the story, I thought of the Paul Simon song, Bridge Over Troubled Waters. Read on and you will see why.
A Facebook friend, Kamil Somaratne, recommended that I watch a 2008 PBS Global Voices documentary about the Israeli Bridge Over the Wadi school, which is a Jewish-Arab school dedicated to teaching tolerance and mutual co-existence. My first impression was intense skepticism. Aren’t most Jewish-Arab education projects dewy-eyed and hopelessly idealistic? Other than assuaging the consciences of the organizers, who do they help and what do they accomplish? And is what the world needs now another Kumbaya moment?
You can forget all that. This is a brutally honest, unblinking look at an absolutely crucial subject: educating Jewish and Arab young people to learn to live together. Yes, there is joy here at watching some of these children bond in touching and innocent ways. But there is no sentimentality. Every moment of sweetness is leavened by at least as many moments of acidic unvarnished truth. There are so many devastating moments in this documentary it’s hard to know where to begin.
Of course, there is the Jewish boy who invites an Arab boy to his home for a sleepover only to have the Jewish boy’s grandmother quiz the latter unmercifully about what his parents tell him about Palestinian terror attacks against Israel. There is another unblinking moment when the grandmother candidly reveals that she believes the Arab children of the school will exploit their education in order to learn better how to kill Jews.
All this is beyond horrible. But–and this is the mark of great documentary filmmaking–in the midst of this woman’s poison you realize that she too is caught in a trap of hatred from which she cannot free herself. While you don’t exactly sympathize with the grandmother, you at least have a sense from whence her fears derive as her family listens to the radio announcing the latest terror attack in Haifa, in which there were many innocent victims.
There is another segment about a visit to an amusement park by Jewish and Arab girls who clearly adore each other. The Israeli Palestinian father chaperones them and they appear to have a lovely day. In the evening the three sit around a campfire and you expect your Kumbaya moment. But this expectation is shattered by an innocent set of questions from the Jewish girl about the nature of love and relationships in Arab culture. To her increasing consternation, the father tells her that his daughter simply may not fall in love of her own volition with a boy of her own choosing, and that if she did he would kill her. And as he says it, the words come out in almost a friendly, embarrassed way. But nevertheless they come crashing down upon all three victims as they sit beside this charming roaring fire.
The observance of the respective holidays of the Jewish and Muslim students is fraught with tension. None more so than Yom Ha-Atzmaout and Land Day/Nakba. You watch as a Jewish teacher innocently tells the children about Arab villages which were “abandoned” by their inhabitants; only to be corrected by the Arab teacher who politely, but firmly takes command of the narrative and reminds her colleague that these villages were not “abandoned,” but “uprooted.”
Later you see tender young Jewish children in tears at the realization that their national holiday portends tragedy and suffering for their Arab classmates. When one Jewish girl in particular seems to break under the burden of this realization and says it is unfair to make her so sad, you want to reach out to embrace her for beginning to grasp this unfathomable contradiction. You know something is going to break in relations between the Jewish and Arab characters. And it does in the midst of a staff meeting in which two Jewish teachers take the Arab teacher to task for forcing such knowledge on a girl too young, innocent and tender to absorb it. The Arab teacher reacts angrily and blames her critics for refusing to understand her own personal and national pain.
Frankly, my sympathies were much more with the Israeli Palestinian teacher. But again the greatness of the documentary lies in the rightness of both sides. Even the side that is less right–in this case the Jewish teachers–elicits sympathy, especially when you watch this tender little girl almost break under the burden of the suffering with which she’s been saddled.
You watch with knowing sadness as an Israeli Palestinian mother takes her family on a car ride she hopes will end with a family reunion with close relatives in the West Bank. Of course, IDF road blocks and uncaring soldiers prohibit her family from traveling the few minutes it would ordinarily take to get to Tulkarem. Later, the mother unburdens herself at a parent’s meeting in front of Jewish and Arab parents. The tears flow and the other parents listen in unblinking silence. Their faces are a mask–not exactly an uncaring one. It’s more a mask of two peoples afraid to feel too deeply for the suffering of the other.
Finally, there is a chilling interchange among a group of very small Jewish boys (perhaps nine or ten years old) in which they speak candidly about the fact that when they grow up they will serve in the IDF and when they do they will have to kill Arabs. There is nothing savage in the statement, which makes it even more disturbing. The boys present this awareness matter of factly, drily, as if to say: “This is the way it is. What can we do?” There are other Jewish boys who protest and say they won’t be asked to kill Arabs. But you know that the boys who are the most cynical are also the most clear-eyed. And this breaks your heart.
This is an hour-long documentary. It’s hard to take that much time out of one’s day in this time of multi-tasking and pressure filled days. But I strongly urge you to make time for A Bridge Over the Wadi. It is time that will be richly rewarded by joy and wisdom and painful knowledge.
Alleged Arab torturer Doron Zahavi aka 'Captain George' (Haaretz)
Yesterday, I reported here on a Haaretz story about the notorious “Captain George,” an IDF military intelligence interrogator accused in 2004 of sodomizing a Lebanese kidnap victim in order to secure information about the location of IDF officer, Ron Arad. Among the things I wrote was my complaint that Haaretz was protecting the real identity of George even though he no longer served in military intelligence.
With the help of a diligent Israeli researcher, I can now expose George’s real identity. He is Doron Zahavi, currently the Arab affairs liaison for the Jerusalem police. His job, as I noted yesterday, is to direct community relations and liaison efforts between the police and Jerusalem’s Arab residents.
“The adviser must be an accepted and welcome figure in the Arab community, with excellent interpersonal skills – someone they feel they can trust, otherwise he cannot succeed in the job,” a senior police officer said.
ACRI complaint identifies Doron Zahavi by name
Apparently, Zahavi has performed his job so well he’s garnering rave reviews right and left from his Arab interlocutors. One, Jouad Siam, complained that in a February, 2010 interrogation, Zahavi threatened to destroy his home (Hebrew source) unless he disbanded a Silwan information center Siam had founded to counter the building efforts of settlers in his neigborhood. Here is how the ex-torturer now conducts himself. I’ll let you be the judge whether the leopard has changed his spots:
He [Zahavi] told us we were making problems and we had to close the center. I told him: “I thought we are in a democracy.” This raised the ire of ‘George,’ who said: “We Jews are fools. We treat you too well. I thought you would behave yourself.” ’George’ threatened that he would draw up a demolition order for his home if he refused to close the center.
According to Siam, “The entire conversation was conducted in shouts. He didn’t let me speak. He would ask and answer his own questions [without allowing Siam to respond]. At the end of the discussion, he told me to go home and behave myself.
Last February, the Association for Civil Right in Israel registered a formal complaint against Zahavi for his outburst. Among the claims listed was that Zahavi called Siam a “criminal” and said that the latter would be held responsible for everything that happened in Silwan. The interrogator asked about the source of Siam’s income and told him he would intervene with his boss. At the end of the meeting, Zahavi attempted to enlist Siam as an informant.
The police replied formally to the complaint claiming laughably that Zahavi had merely invited Siam to a “get to know you” meeting in which the police advisor sought to discover what issues particularly troubled the local Arab population. In the course of the meeting, Zahavi felt it necessary to inform his Arab interlocutor about activities in which he was engaged that violated the law. No mention in the police reply how founding an information center was a violation of law.
The publicly available ACRI complaint lists Zahavi’s real name. In that case, why would Haaretz not be able to use it? The whole situation baffles me. At any rate, thank God we’re not bound by any such nonsense and we offer the real Doron Zahavi to the world in all his glory. If a reader has a picture of Zahavi, please let me know.
Rabbi Doctor Shlomo Riskin's Efrat, Arab-rein on Israel Independence Day
Worried that the hired help might steal the silverware or take vengeance for stealing surrounding land, Rabbi Sholom Riskin’s Efrat is Arabrein on Yom HaAtzmaoot. But on other days it appears little of any real value gets done there without them.
An Israeli reader has e-mailed me a message meant for the Efrat community, a major West Bank settlement founded by former Lincoln Square Synagogue Rabbi Doctor (his own website attaches the honorifics to him) Shlomo Riskin:
בימים שני ושלישי הקרובים (19-20/4/10)
יום הזכרון והעצמאות
לא תתאפשר כניסת פלשתינאים לאפרת
This coming Tuesday and Wednesday, Memorial and Independence Days, no Palestinians will be permitted to enter Efrat.
My correspondent’s ‘wicked’ rejoinder:
So who’s going to wipe the settlers’ asses on Independence Day?
It should be kept in mind that Efrat is a settlement known for being an especially cruel neighbor to surrounding Palestinian villages, whose misdeeds have included stealing surrounding land for its own expansion and polluting farm land with its own untreated sewage. Perhaps Efrat’s residents think their turds are golden and have special medicinal powers that would benefit their Palestinian neighbors. If so, that’s mighty white of ‘em.
Also, Efrat is one of the settlements which received largesse from Christian Zionist Pastor John Hagee and his pro-settler Christians United for Israel.
Debbie Almontaser pictured in 2007, before her removal as Khalil Gribran Academy principal (Liz O. Baylen/NYT)
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that the New York City Department of Education (DOC) discriminated against Debbie Almontaser, founding principal of the Khalil Gibran Academy, the City’s first Arab-language public school, when they removed her from her position. Readers of this blog may recall a ferocious campaign waged by Jewish neocons and Islamophobes like Daniel Pipes, David Yerushalmi, the N.Y. Post, and Stop the Madrasa against the school and Almontaser personally.
Matters came to a head when Almontaser was smeared over a T-shirt displaying the word “Intifada.” Her opponents made her out to be a supporter of Islamism and armed resistance because she explained the Arabic meaning of the word to a reporter, while not denouncing it sufficiently. When Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein dropped her like a hot potato, her days were numbered. After her forced resignation, she sued and lost. Then she filed a claim with EEOC for discrimination. The N.Y. Times reports on the finding:
A federal commission has determined that New York City’s Department of Education discriminated against the founding principal of an Arabic-language public school by forcing her to resign in 2007 following a storm of controversy driven by opponents of the school.
Acting on a complaint filed last year by the principal, Debbie Almontaser, the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that the department “succumbed to the very bias that creation of the school was intended to dispel and a small segment of the public succeeded in imposing its prejudices on D.O.E. as an employer,” according to a letter issued by the commission on Tuesday.
The commission said that the department had discriminated against Ms. Almontaser, a Muslim of Yemeni descent, “on account of her race, religion and national origin.”
This is a great deal for civil rights in New York and in America. It is a day that Arab-Americans can be proud. It is a day when all Americans should be proud. Debbie Almontaser turned to the federal government for redress and it did what it could to make her whole.
This is a day when Muslim-haters like Norman Podhoretz and his friends I mentioned above should hide their heads in shame (though they will shake their fists in defiance instead). Their bullying has been shown for what it is: un-American, unfair, unjust. We are better than the haters in Stop the Madrasa. The democratic system worked.
My chief regret is that the political leadership of New York and the Jewish communal leadership were cowards and turned tail at the first sign of trouble. Instead of standing up to the ranters, Bloomberg folded at the earliest opportunity. The New York Jewish federation, after allowing Rabbi Michael Paley to represent it in the fight on behalf of the Academy, forced him to shut up. I was never able to determine who specifically made this decision–whether it was an executive decision by CEO Jon Ruskay or a lay decision influenced by a wealthy neocon board member like James Tisch. Whoever made the decision betrayed the courage necessary for true leadership. Instead of speaking out and doing the right thing, they let Daniel Pipes present the Jewish community’s position by default.
The EEOC called on New York City to do the right thing:
The commission asked the Department of Education to reach a “just resolution” with Ms. Almontaser and to consider her demands, which include reinstatement to her old job, back pay, damages of $300,000 and legal fees. Should the two sides fail to reach an agreement, the dispute will end up in court, her lawyer said.
Instead of hearing the message, the City’s attorney said his client would fight Ms. Almontaser every step of the way. They still haven’t gotten the message. I only hope that cooler heads will prevail. The former principal was wronged and deserves her job back and the chance to lead this school. That’s what’s fair. That’s what’s American.
I do take issue with one statement in this report:
Despite Ms. Almontaser’s longstanding reputation as a moderate Muslim, her critics succeeded in recasting her as a “9/11 denier” and a “jihadist.”
This is very sloppy writing and editing. Her critics did NOT succeed in recasting her as any of those things. But the mud flung by the Islamophobes resonated in certain quarters (like the pages of the Post) and her employer hung her out to dry. There was never ANY truth to any of the claims against Almontaser. They were all lies. So in that sense her critics could not have succeeded in any objective sense in labeling her. But they waged a vitriolic racist campaign which the DOE and city refused to counteract. Rather than fight, they folded.
In its criticism of the City’s actions, the Commission found that Almontaser had said nor done anything related to the T-shirt incident that warranted her removal:
It was The Post’s article, the commission wrote in its letter this week, that prompted the Department of Education to force Ms. Almontaser to resign. (City officials have said that she resigned voluntarily.)
“Significantly, it was not her actual remarks, but their elaboration by the reporter — creating waves of explicit anti-Muslim bias from several extremist sources — that caused D.O.E. to act,” the commission’s letter said.
I’m delighted that the EEOC pointedly noted the nasty role playing by Pipes and STM and labelled them “extremist.”
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Worried that the hired help might steal the silverware or take vengeance for stealing surrounding land, Rabbi Sholom Riskin’s Efrat is Arabrein on Yom HaAtzmaoot. But on other days it appears ![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=adb28229-90e3-4ab2-bad2-d5195fb218ab)
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