Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Ken Silverstein (no relation as far as I know) has uncovered some good dirt on new Giuliani campaign advisor, Daniel Pipes. He was first to report that Pipes had been hired by the campaign. Ken is also reading Pipes’ blog (it’s a dirty job but somebody’s gotta do it) and ferreting out some material that oughta embarrass the American public, if not Giuliani or Pipes:

Daniel Pipes…essentially argued for war crimes against Palestinians, and there was no cry of protest from the media or anywhere else.

“Believing that if you don’t win a war, you lose it, I have long encouraged the Israeli government to take more assertive measures in response to attacks,” Pipes wrote on his blog on September 6.

“In a Jerusalem Post piece six years ago, “Preventing war: Israel’s options,” I called for shutting off utilities to the Palestinian Authority as well as a host of other measures, such as permitting no transportation in the PA of people or goods beyond basic necessities, implementing the death penalty against murderers, and razing villages from which attacks are launched. Then and now, such responses have two benefits: First, they send a strong deterrent signal “Hit us and we will hit you back much harder” thereby reducing the number of attacks in the short term. Second, they impress Palestinians with the Israeli will to survive, and so bring closer their eventual acceptance of the Jewish state.”

The Geneva Conventions label collective punishments as a war crime. “No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed,” according to Article 33. “Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has warned the Israeli cabinet that implementation of the kinds of measures recommended by Pipes–similar to ones approved by the security cabinet recently–would be considered war crimes. So Rudy, how does it feel to employ someone advocating war crimes against Palestinians??

Would it be tiresomely obvious to point out how ludicrous such Pipes policy recommendations are? Of course, he cannot believe that razing entire Palestinian villages would “bring closer their eventual acceptance of the Jewish state.” Of if he does he’s one of the more wingnutty Jewish figures around. But more likely he just doesn’t give a shit whether Palestinians accept Israel or not. Probably as far as he’s concerned, shipping them off by force to Saudi Arabia as some Kahanist nutcases have proposed would be just fine; or picking them off one by one (or 10 by 10) until the rest flee in terror wouldn’t be a bad idea either.

I’ve written often here about Pipes and his schlock organ, Campus Watch. Be my guest, take a walk on the seamy side of Jewish right-wing politics. Hat tip to Mideast Undernews for this.