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

Just about everyone knows about Abe Foxman’s one track mind. Well, maybe two tracks. One track is anti-Semitism and the other is his conservative pro-Israel politics. In a JTA essay, Abe has tried to branch out into new territory with disastrous results. The result should embarrass Abe as well as JTA, though I doubt it will. I call it JTA enabling Foxman’s fictions and follies.

In his piece, Foxman attempts to cast aspersion on Switzerland’s recent energy deal with Iran. He claims that the former has broken with the international community in its effort to isolate the Persian supposed nuclear state-in-the-making.

The only problem with Foxman’s argument is that Israel too has energy dealings with Iran, albeit ones it tries to disguise as best it can. Writing in the Swiss newspaper Sonntag, Shraga Elam reveals (in German) that Israel purchases large amounts of Iranian oil through European third parties. With Shraga’s cooperation I reported his story at Comment is Free last week. In European ports like Rotterdam, the oil’s paperwork is changed so that it can be imported into Israel without any markings indicating its real origin.

This oil trade takes place through a joint Iranian-Israeli company established during the Shah’s reign and now controlled by Israel. Iran has demanded the return of the firm’s assets and claimed they were worth $5-billion as of 1998. You can imagine how much more the firm is worth ten years later. This sum is an indication of the size of Israel’s oil trade with Iran.

So come off it, Abe. What are you and Israel complaining about? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. And may I ask Abe to explain this statement by Israeli energy minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer defending the oil trade (followed by Elam’s summary of the foreign ministry’s attitude toward the dealings):

“Every attempt for contact with an enemy state that serves Israeli business and economic interests, strengthens the stability of the region.” And from the Israeli foreign ministry one could hear that it is not their business to inquire where the oil comes from.

Ben Eliezer has no problem buying Iranian oil. The foreign ministry casts a blind eye. But Abe Foxman is in high moral dudgeon over it. Where does Abe get off being holier than the Pope on this?

Such Iran-Israel trade is technically legal since Iran is not defined under Israel law as an enemy country. However, it smacks of the utmost hypocrisy for Israel and the Israel lobby to be complaining about the Swiss when Israel itself can’t get rid of its sweet tooth for high-quality Iranian crude. I should add that Iran itself displays equal hypocrisy because it has imposed its own boycott of Israeli trade which it is violating.

Next, Foxman really goes to town on the Swiss for their extraordinary temerity in advocating for Israeli-Palestinian peace. The Geneva Accords are the focus of Abe’s wrath:

[Swiss foreign minister] Calmy-Rey has also tried to undercut Israel’s diplomacy. Brazenly disregarding Israel’s sovereignty and democratically elected government, Switzerland sponsored negotiations between private Israeli and Palestinian individuals, known as the Geneva Accord.

Unlike the Oslo negotiations, which were backed by the Israeli government after the first couple of private meetings, the Swiss project was officially rejected by Israel and the Swiss ambassador summoned to receive a protest.

Regardless of the content of the resulting document, the Swiss action represented an inexcusable intrusion by a foreign government in the peace process and an end run around the “road map” that reflected the will of the international community and demanded an end to Palestinian terrorism as a condition of further Israeli steps.

Foxman is really off the deep end here. Instead of welcoming any nation’s sincere efforts at advancing the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace, Foxman sees Geneva and the Swiss involvement in it as intended to harm Israel’s interests. It doesn’t matter that former Israeli and Palestinian government ministers participated in the talks. They were still, to Foxman’s mind, hostile to Israel. This is beyond far-fetched.

You knew that Abe couldn’t leave this subject without his other bete-noire, anti-Semitism, rearing its ugly head. Because Switzerland trades with the Iran and hosted the Geneva Accords this means they are somehow continuing their tacit historic support for Nazism and anti-Semitism:

In the battles against the Nazi regime during World War II and communism during the Cold War, Switzerland pursued its narrow self-interest by professing neutrality.

Today the Swiss appear to be taking the same approach in the current global war against the radical Islamist threat, spearheaded by Iran, which menaces Israel’s existence and the security of the West.

But let’s get to Foxman’s fictions. Anyone who follows the Israeli press accounts of the incident in question will immediately smell a rat:

In one egregious example, Israel’s raid on a Jericho prison in 2006 was denounced for “violat[ing] the principle of proportionality.” In that incident, Israeli soldiers had surrounded the prison, which five armed terrorists, including the assassins of an Israeli government minister, had taken over.

One prisoner and one prison guard were killed in an exchange of fire…

Here’s what really happened: several Palestinian militants associated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine were imprisoned for their involvement in the assassination of Israeli minister Rehevam Zeevi. They were guarded by British and U.S. personnel. When those nations decided their security guards were not receiving the protection they expected they withdrew them. The PA (then controlled by Hamas) made noises about releasing the prisoners, though it did not do so. Ehud Olmert, then in the thick of an election campaign, decided to take advantage of the situation by orchestrating what I called a “jailbreak in reverse.” He sent massive amounts of firepower to Jericho, bulldozed the jail, arrested (”kidnapped” might be a better word for it) the PFLP prisoners, spirited them back to Israel. The Palestinian prisoners were paraded in their skivvies before a world audience to their utter humiliation. Israelis loved the spectable and Olmert promptly watched as his poll numbers skyrocketed.

Contrary to Foxman, Haaretz reports that three PA security guards were killed. By the way, these guards were supervising the prisoners. At no time were the latter either armed or in control of the prison as Foxman claims. No prisoners were reported killed as Foxman claims.

You can see that Foxman’s description is nothing like what actually happened. But he relies on his readers’ implict trust that what he purveys is truth when it is at best slanted and at worst lies. Which leads one to question his credibility in general. I’ve written extensively here about JTA errors involved in its Israel reporting. The last time I wrote about one, JTA even issued a correction (but only after another journalist picked up on my post). In this case, the error is only secondarily that of JTA since it merely enabled Foxman’s falsehoods by publishing them without properly vetting them. But it’s still a shoddy piece of journalism whatever way you look at it.

Thanks to Sol Salbe for his usual eagle eye in spotting this story.

tags abe-foxman, israel attacks jericho jail, israel buys iranian oil, jewish-telegraphic-agency, jta, pflp, shraga elam, Swiss foreign policy blunders on Iran and Israel positi, swiss violate iran boycott

Commenting at Gershom Gorenberg’s South Jerusalem blog, Ruth Abrams reveals that JTA has issued a correction to its subscribers saying that Leslie Susser’s report that Israeli police sources claimed 20% of East Jerusalem Palestinians were implicated in terrorism was wrong. I’d reported the error to Ami Eden of JTA. Given our rocky history, Ami didn’t see fit to communicate directly to me the correction. Probably doesn’t want to admit to me that this happened.

Of course, the damage has been done and few if any Jewish papers carrying the original report will note the serious error. That will mean that countless America Jews will carry in their minds the idea that 45,000 East Jerusalem Arabs are terrorists.

If only JTA’s Israel-related stories adhered to standards of other good Jewish journalism like that practiced at The Forward or Jewish Week.

Gershom, being the good journalist he is, followed up on the JTA report with the interior ministry’s office and discovered that at most a few hundred East Jerusalem residents are implicated in even the remotest way with terrorism.  That’s a far sight better than 45,000!

tags false claim 20 percent east jerusalem arabs involved in, gershom-gorenberg, jta, south-jerusalem

Apparently, some right-wing Jewish individual or group (this smacks of Mort Klein and ZOA or someone of that ilk) has fed yet a new Obama smear story to JTA with which to regale American Jews and plant new doubts in their mind. The latest example of Jewish Obamaphobia involves, you guessed it, Pastor Jeremiah Wright. Apparently his Church’s newsletter reprinted an L.A. Times op-ed column written by a Hamas representative arguing that Hamas should not be expected to recognize Israel before negotiating with it.

Let’s get real here. Many Israeli and American Jewish analysts (including a former Mossad director) agree with the Hamas position here. So what’s the problem? If the L.A. Times didn’t find it was fomenting terrorism and Israel hatred by publishing the original column why can’t the Pastor’s church republish it?

People, this is going too far. As a result of this lunacy, Obama feels compelled to get down on his knees and beg the Jewish community’s forgiveness for something that wasn’t his doing in the first place; and in the second, wasn’t even something that Wright should have to apologize for (unless that is the L.A. Times should also apologize for publishing it in the first place). Here’s Obama’s craven response:

“I have already condemned my former pastor’s views on Israel in the strongest possible terms, and I certainly wasn’t in church when that outrageously wrong Angeles Times piece was re-printed in the bulletin,” Obama said in a statement emailed to JTA late Thursday, and referring to critics who noted that Obama had been in church when Wright had made controversial statements. “Hamas is a terrorist organization, responsible for the deaths of many innocents, and dedicated to Israel’s destruction, as evidenced by their bombarding of Sderot in recent months. I support requiring Hamas to meet the international community’s conditions of recognizing Israel, renouncing violence, and abiding by past agreements before they are treated as a legitimate actor.”

This is a sorry statement which takes us back quite a ways in figuring a way to get Israel and the Palestinians (including Hamas) together to negotiate a way out of their impasse. The Jewish community is forcing Barack Obama to go through ever smaller hoops in order to get, or not to lose its support. Pretty soon the hoop will be as wide as the eye of a needle and neither Obama nor a camel can thread that.

It speaks volumes that JTA thought this story was newsworthy. They’re carrying water for Hillary, McCain or the Republican Jewish Coalition whether they know it or not.

Hat tip to Sam Smith for featuring this story at his blog.

tags Hamas stand, hamas-recognition-of-israel, jta, los-angeles-times, Obama blasts Hamas op-ed, obamaphobia

Don’t get me wrong here. I like Muzzlewatch. I really do. And I understand that Muzzlewatch is different than Tikun Olam. It is the voice of Jewish Voice for Peace. As such it represents an organizational agenda where my blog represents a personal agenda.

JVP’s website’s weekly newsletter notes with pride that Ami Eden, JTA’s managing editor, would’ve included Cecilie Surasky, Muzzlewatch’s editor in the Forward’s Famous 50 list. I know as outsiders we Jewish progressives are all hankering to influence the mainstream political debate. We’re looking for that good word confirming that what we do impacts the mainstream. Hell, I’m even guilty of that myself. So I know how good it must’ve felt to JVP to get his praise. It means that maybe JVP could leverage such approbation to penetrate a wider audience–to get its voice heard by more people.

I mean it would be great to get onto the list–though you would share it with the likes of Michael Mukasey, Norman Podhoretz, Abe Foxman, Alan Dershowitz, Howard Kohr, Sheldon Adelson, Peter Deutsch (founder of the nation’s first “Jewish” public school), David Brog (Christians United for Israel), Charles Jacobs (David Project), Rita Katz (SITE Institute, anti-Muslim anti-terror group), Ronald Lauder, Michael Steinhardt, and Shlomo Cunin (Chabad). But I can’t help feeling awkward about Muzzelwatch basking in Ami Eden’s praise.

After all, this is the same JTA that published Mort Klein’s fake Desmond Tutu quote that supposedly equated Israel with Hitler. The same Ami Eden who called me a liar because I rightly noted that JTA had not apologized for smearing Tutu’s name. The same JTA which quoted a Maariv report which fraudulently claimed that Hamas called for the elimination of Jews from Palestine and never bothered to correct the report. The same JTA which couldn’t manage to find a single source to defend Danny Rubinstein’s use of the term apartheid to describe Israel’s Occupation policy. The same JTA which recycled fraudulent claims about the research of Barnard tenure candidate Nadia Abu El Haj and again couldn’t manage to find a single source to interview who would defend her. The same JTA which published a Ron Kampeas story about the Walt-Mearsheimer book asking whether they were “on drugs” when they wrote it.

It is really tempting to see Ami Eden’s comment as an indicator that Muzzlewatch has heft in the mainstream Jewish media. And it would be great news if this were so. But given JTA’s spotty (to say the least) journalistic record under Ami Eden–a record that predated him to be fair–the praise would give me as much pause as pleasure.

tags ami-eden, forward-famous-50, jta, muzzlewatch

Thanks to a joint effort of Jerry Haber, Juan Cole and my reader Amir, we’ve tracked down both the source of the faulty Hamas translation I wrote about yesterday and what the real translation of the statement should be.

To recap, JTA wrote yesterday that Hamas had called for the elimination of Jews from historic Palestine. If accurate, this statement would be both a violation of Hamas charter, which calls for Jews to live in Palestine under a unitary state controlled by Palestinians (which admittedly is a troubling, unacceptable premise for most Jews); and it would be real news since it would mark an even further radicalization of Hamas’ position.

If inaccurate, it would mean that whoever translated this statement either accidentally or purposely stoked the fire of anti-Palestinian enmity by creating a statement that twisted both the Arabic words of the original (which you’ll find here) and the political views of Hamas.

It turns out that the original source for the story was probably Maariv, the major Israeli daily. I’m guessing that JTA has a stringer in Israel who translated the Maariv story into English. The Maariv reporter mistranslated a key portion of Hamas’ Arabic statement as Jerry Haber and Juan Cole have confirmed by comparing the Hebrew translation to the original.

Here is what Maariv claimed Hamas wrote (this is Jerry’s translation from the Hebrew). Disputed passages are italicized:

“Palestine is Arabic Islamic land, from the River to the Sea, including Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Churches, the Mosques, the Mountains, and the Beaches.” In Hamas they said, “The Jews have no place in it [Palestine- I.I], and it is a single unity that is indivisible.”

And this is Jerry’s translation from the original Arabic:

Palestine is an Arabic Islamic country from time immemorial, from its River to its Sea, with its Jerusalem, its Al-Aksa, its churches and its mosques, the Jews not having a presence in it. It is a single unity and is indivisible.”

To which he adds this rough translation of a similar statement in Arabic from the Hamas website:

“Hamas affirmed that Palestine is an Arab, Islamic country since time immemorial and Jews have no right whatsoever in the land of Palestine,”

So here’s the problem with the Maariv translation. First, it leaves out the phrase “from time immemorial.” Why is this important? Before we answer that, let’s note that the Hamas claim that Palestine has been an Islamic country from time immemorial is historically inaccurate.

Now, let’s continue. Juan Cole notes in an e mail to Jerry that the “time immemorial” phrase refers to the time before Jews came en masse back to Israel beginning in the 1880s. In other words, the point is to say that for centuries before 1880 Palestine was Arab. This is meant to bolster the current Hamas claim that all of Palestine (including what is now Israel) is legitimately Palestinian. Though it is true that there was only a negligible Jewish population in Israel for centuries after the Roman expulsion and the country was essentially Arab-dominated, it is surely not true, as I wrote above, that Palestine has been Arab from time immemorial.

That is why the phrase “not having a presence in it” is so important. This does not mean, as Maariv translates that Jews have no PLACE in a current or future Palestine. It means that Hamas is claiming that Jews had no physical existence in Palestine before the yishuv period. The purpose of this is to bolster the contention that Jews have no NATIONAL claim to Palestine.

Again, we can argue whether Hamas has a faulty grasp of history. But the main point as far as Jerry Haber and I are concerned is that we not allow Maariv, JTA and the thousands of right-wing commentators who have grasped this botched translation job to argue that Hamas has gone from being in favor a unitary state combining Palestinians and Jews; to an exterminationist position advocating the elimination of Jews from all of Palestine.

Why is this important? Sure, pro-Israel ideologues are going to argue what’s new and who cares. Hamas hates us. The statement whether accurately quoted or not merely confirms this. But I’ll tell you why it is important. What people in political conflicts say matters. When words are put into someone’s mouth that they did not say–this can matter even more. Demonizing Hamas by turning them into genocidaires serves the interests of the pro-Israel right. That’s what JTA and Maariv have done. They may have done so inadvertently or carelessly rather than maliciously. But they have done so nonetheless. And given the powder keg of hatred that is the current Middle East what we don’t need more of is provocation and distortion. Reality is bad enough without introducing incitement into the equation.

Will Maariv and JTA correct the record? Your guess is as good as mine. I hope so but I doubt it. A big hat tip to Sol Salbe, my trusty Australian source, who originally brought this story to my attention.

tags hamas-jews-out, islamic-group-does-not-support-elimination-of-jews-from, jta, maariv-mistranslates-hamas-statement

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In a remarkable turnaround brought about by a campaign of Jewish Voice for Peace's Muzzlewatch blog and with a small assist from Tikun Olam, the University of St. Thomas has backed away from its previous rejection and reinvited Archbishop Desmond Tutu to speak on campus. Muzzlewatch originally reported that the university had disinvited him because the Minneapolis Jewish Community Relations Council had told school administrators that he was "anti-Israel" and had made remarks likening Israel to Hitler. Today's Minneapolis Star Tribune carries an opinion column by JVP staffers Mitchell Plitnick and Cecilie Surasky criticizing St. Thomas' position prior to its reversal. We should applaud St. Thomas for finally seeing reason on this issue. Their boneheaded, tone-deaf ...

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JTA published today a mini-story on the Los Angeles Israeli consul general's report savagely criticizing Israeli refusenik groups for speaking in the U.S. against the Israeli Occupation. Unfortunately, the impetus for their story came from a rambling press release by Mort Klein of the ZOA full of scurrilous propaganda against the Union of Progressive Zionists and Israeli refuseniks groups. To be fair, the JTA story did also paraphrase Brit Tzedek's reply to the Israeli consul general in which the group defended the refuseniks' rights to criticize the Occupation. In my honest opinion, the story only began to scratch the surface. As my readers will know from my own reporting, the original Hebrew language version ...