Yair Netanyahu's Facebook profile caption: '...The Palestinians, may they be cursed'
Jewish tradition declares that children shall not be punished for the sins of their fathers. But it didn’t anticipate a son like the 19 year-old Yair Netanyahu, who appears to retain some of the harsh Arab-hatred that characterizes both his father, Benyamin, and 98 year-old grandfather, Ben Zion. I have written here of the latter’s call for hanging Arabs in the nearest town square to teach them who’s boss, a punishment he contends that was quite effective in the Ottoman era. Apparently, he doesn’t realize that the despotic Muslim Ottomans may not be the political model he wishes Israel to emulate. In 1989, Benyamin, his father advocated expelling Israeli Palestinian citizens from the State in a comment I’d personally never heard until I read it and published it here.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, as they say. Here are a few of the choice racist comments (and a shorter English article) this excellent expose by Uri Blau attributes to Yair Netanyahu via his Facebook page. A few years ago at a time when Ehud Olmert was prime minister, riots broke out in the formerly Arab town of Akko (Acre), when an Israeli Palestinian mistakenly drove into an Orthodox community on Yom Kippur (a day when driving is forbidden). The result was this Facebook page created by the younger Netanyahu which stated:
As a Result of the Akko Pogroms, I Too Boycott Arab Businesses!
Those Arab sons of whores desecrated the holiest day of our year. This wasn’t in Syria or in Egypt. It was right here in the State of Israel–the Jewish nation’s only state. Because the leftist authorities won’t do anything regarding this matter and because the media will only trot out [before the cameras] the “poor Arabs,” it is up to us to do the minimum to restore our self-respect by boycotting all Arab businesses and products. Besides, I boycotted these shits even before!
Despite Netanyahu’s appeal for members to join the group, only 23 did, which seems a pretty lame performance for a soldier who serves now in the IDF international press liaison office (can’t you just hear Avital Leibovich, one of the army’s top PR flacks saying to a scrum of journalists, “anyone care for an interview with the prime minister’s son??”). It may be a mark of the degradation of the IDF’s core service values that Yair’s uncle, Yonatan, died a hero as a member of the elite unit that assaulted the Entebbe Airport in 1976, while his nephew serves as a military PR flack in 2011. How the mighty have fallen!
Returning to his Facebook account, just after the murder of the Fogel family by Palestinian militants, Netanyahu wrote this under the assumed name, Jesse Netan. My editorial comments are in italics, I couldn’t help myself!:
We Jews and Christians celebrate life and love, you Muslims celebrate hatred and death! I attended the funeral and saw the five bodies including the littlest of the babies [ed., this isn't truthful as one does not see bodies at a Jewish funeral, only caskets]. When we Israelis accidentally harm a Palestinian boy in Gaza the entire nation mourns for the child of the enemy [ed., what country is he living in??] half the army goes to prison and we pay a lot of money to the family [ed., what planet is he living on??]. We have enough power to destroy Gaza in five minutes, but we operate there with utmost care against terrorists who intend to harm our citizens and to turn their own citizens into human shields.
Further, after the murder of this innocent family, they danced and celebrated in the streets, precisely like after 9/11!
Terror has a religion and it is Islam. Not every Muslim is a terrorist but every terrorist is a Muslim. Have you ever heard of anyone killing themselves with a bomb in the name of Jesus or Moses [ed., I suppose he forgot Masada and Trumpeldor]? NO! People blow themselves up only in the name of Allah!
There is no such thing as a Palestinian state. It is part of Israel. There never in history has been a Palestinian state. There is no such state and I hope there never will be. Palestinians are Arabs who settled in our country, but who emigrated from other Arab countries less than 100 years ago.
A mere two hours after Blau first turned to the IDF press office for a comment on the Facebook profile it was closed to public view. The army explained that Yair had been told what the expectations of him were and that he could not talk politics on his Facebook account. Of course, the IDF had no problem in general with the specific rage-filled/rejectionist racist views he expressed, only with the fact that they were “political.”
The family’s attorney strangely attempted to argue that Haaretz played a dirty trick on the young man by wrenching his comments “out of context.” Can he possibly explain in what context such comments might be acceptable?? He goes on to argue that some of the comments were made when the boy was a mere lad of 16 and a private individual (as if this makes them less offensive). He calls this a “cynical use of a young boy’s words.” And yes, of course the lawyer plays the Holocaust card, claiming that Yair was so overwrought because he was reacting to the anti-Semitic outburst of John Galliano, as the grandson of a man who lost his entire family in the Holocaust.
The family lawyer’s final words reek of hypocrisy and mendacity:
Yair is prepared to respect anyone who is ready to live in peace with Israel, whatever his identity. His parents, the prime minister and his wife believe in moderation and tolerance [!] and they respect every individual without respect to their religion [!], ethnicity or national affiliation and so they raised their son.
No mention of course of Bibi’s call for expulsion of Israel’s Palestinian citizens and how that squares with his life lived in moderation and tolerance.
Judge Uri Shtruzman, portrait of judge as old racist
James Joyce wrote A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Tonight I’m writing a portrait of a judge as an old racist.
Some readers develop an allergic reaction when I write posts like the one I’m about to. All I can say is if Israel’s highest professional leadership didn’t believe these things and Israeli journalists didn’t think they were worth publishing then I wouldn’t have a story to write myself. So rather than complain that I always write about such stories, I’d suggest that Israel’s judiciary develop an ethics code that disciplines judges who so clearly disqualify themselves from sitting on the bench and deciding cases fairly. While the judge in this case is retired you can be sure that the views expressed informed his attitudes and decisions when he was on the bench. He is still a respected public figure who served as chief judge of the military court of appeals and as a judge for the chief of staff. He also serves on the advisory committee of a far right wing Zionist “think tank,” the Institute for Zionist Strategies. Another key leader of the Institute is Max Singer, co-founder of the Hudson Institute, who I’ve written about here.
A website called Patriotic Israel, which appears to be a settler-supported media outlet profiles Judge Uri Shtruzman, who wants readers of this august publication to understand “the truth” as he sees it (doesn’t it remind you of Jack Nicholson in , when he says: “The truth? You want the truth? You can’t HANDLE the truth!”). I do so love it when right wing Israeli nationalists say emphatically that they want us to know “the truth” about Arabs or about the Israeli-Arab conflict. It’s always of course the truth as THEY see it. Which of course is their opinion, their reading of history and an amalgation of facts mixed with opinion–but definitely not the truth.
Judge Shtruzman, a Likud loyalist who, in a 2005 Haaretz article, called for IDF soldiers to refuse orders to evacuate settlements (imagine a judge in the military court system approves of behavior that in any other society would be called mutiny), inveighs in this interview against the “dangerous naivete” of some Israelis and recommends that Israel speak “the truth” to the nations of the world. That truth means among other things rejecting the notion that it is possible to make possible with the Arab nations. This notion is naive in the extreme, since the truth is that no peace can be made in “this generation or the next” because the Arab nation is “not ready to accept us.” That’s because the values of Muslims lag behind those of the rest of the peoples of the world. Apparently the good judge missed the memo about the Saudi peace initiative, now ten years old, which called for precisely what Shturzman says is impossible. What he really means is that peace is not possible on settlers’ terms, and therefore it’s not possible at all.
Part of the reason for this Arab intransigence lies in the fact that the Arab world is mired in “the same situation that held sway in Europe hundreds of years ago” in which religious wars were the rule of the day. Now, Europe has come to the point that it upholds the values of nationalism alongside other values [than religious fanaticism]. Today, Shturzman says:
Israel is destroying itself for the sake of European values of human rights the aspiration to democracy for all. According to such ideas, equality for all human beings is the order of the day, including a demand that we embrace even those seeking to prey upon us, because they too have a right to life and to eat [!].
The judge finds there are essential differences between Jews and Muslims. While Jews attempted to integrate into the societies in which they settled in the Diaspora (he seems to have missed the whole Zionism thing, which rejected precisely this notion that Jews could integrate as minorities within Diaspora lands), Muslims in the non-Muslim Diaspora seek to have their culture, laws and religion dominate [the societies in which they live]. He sees the same phenomenon occuring in the Knesset, with Muslim MKs acting in the interests of themeselves and against the interests of the State and the Jewish people.
The Muslim MKs are members of a people which seeks to destroy the State of Israel, and the idea that they seek the best for Israel because it seeks to do well by them is a dangerous notion that we must recognize as such. If we do not, Judge Shtruzman says, our end will be like that of Yugoslavia after Tito died. In other words, someone has to impose some order on this mess otherwise the ‘uppity niggers’ will get the notion that they’re equal to us and will destroy this country just like the Muslims did, Yugoslavia.
This is a talk I delivered at the Confronting Islamophobia: I am My Brother’s Keeper conference on Saturday at St. Mark’s Cathedral here in Seattle. I’m grateful to the organizing committee for inviting me to speak. I’m delighted to report that the event was very well attended. Last night, the St. Mark’s main sactuary was full with I estimate about 800 or more in attendance to hear Imam Faisal Rauf. There were TV crews there last night and today. The Seattle Times ran a front page story and both Steve Scher and Dave Ross interviewed Imam Rauf on radio. Congratulations to the steering committee which did yeoman work planning a massive enterprise very successfully.
* * *
In conceiving this conference, the organizers knew in theory they were going to be addressing an important issue in American life. But events since we first began organizing it have proven just how fortuitous our choice of topics has been. American Islamophobes like Rep. Peter King, and Pamela Geller and David Yerushalmi have turned up the heat and volume on this debate and placed into even starker relief the necessity of having a rational, tolerant discussion of the role of Islam and American Muslims in the life of this nation.
Here’s what we can’t do: we can’t score political points, we can’t try to win elections, we can’t single out our fellow citizens as terrorists merely because of their religious beliefs. We can’t demonize all American Muslims for the beliefs of a handful of hating extremists among them. Anyone who does this must be held up for the bigot he or she is. In the light of the American assassination of Osama bin Laden, this becomes an even more urgent task. No matter how many times a president says that he isn’t seeking to tar an entire religion with a broad brush merely because of the acts of one adherent or one Islamist terror group, it doesn’t mean the rest of us have gotten the message. In fact, yesterday a pilot on a Delta Airlines flight out of Memphis refused to take off until two imams were removed from the plane. Apparently, their dress so spooked him that he must’ve believed he had Osama’s cousins flying with him.
Whatever we may’ve thought of the Bin Laden killing, Barack Obama now has an opportunity to head off the bigots in the Republican Party and Tea Party movement who will try to make hay from this. Clearly, it’s going to be a tough election for Republicans. A major issue of national security has practically been foreclosed to them. When a Party becomes desperate it seeks the weakest link to attack. Unfortunately, some in this country see American Muslims as this weak link. They will tar and feather them.
Remember the smears against Obama during the presidential election, which still cause a majority of Republicans in this country to believe that he is Muslim? Look to the political right to exploit fear of Islam and make hay in the 2012 elections. It may be used in the presidential election and it may be used in other federal or state elections. We must be alert to fight back against such bigotry. That’s why it’s important for non-Muslims, specifically Jews because of our complicated, fraught relationship, to step up and say we will not stand for it.
I wanted to speak about a few specific events that have occurred here in Seattle and in other places that might instruct us about the problems we face as Jews and Muslims in overcoming our suspicions and conflict.
Naveed Haq
In 2006, a mentally-ill Pakistani-American named Naveed Haq forced his way into the Seattle Jewish federation building and proceeded to shoot at the staff killing one woman and seriously injuring five. In his twisted mind, he equated Jews in Seattle with the acts of Israel committed in Lebanon during the 2006 war. This was an act of hatred and violence unprecedented in Seattle’s Jewish community. It shook many people to the core. Thankfully, the strident ideologues in the community representing groups like Stand With Us, didn’t set the tone for the response.
But the best that can be said, is that the community’s response wasn’t worse than it might otherwise have been. The first jury to hear the case couldn’t agree on a sentence and there was a mistrial. The prosecution announced it was retrying the case. It insisted on trying Haq for first degree murder despite his documented history of mental illness going back ten years. The district attorney attempted to argue that this deranged individual knew right from wrong and rationally planned his acts of violence. All this, despite the fact that he was a deeply confused, disoriented, alienated and sick man.
One of the federation victims even said to the press that the most important aspect of this case was not religious hatred or anti-Semitism, but rather the fact that it was so incredibly easy for such a disturbed individual to procure a gun. The prosecution refused to consider a sentence to a mental asylum. All this in large part, because the Jewish communal leadership would not settle for anything less than prison and punishment. Sadly, the Jews of Seattle lacked the capacity to understand that–despite the fact that Haq, in his delusional state, blamed American Jews for Lebanon’s suffering–he was a sick man, and not an Islamist radical. For Seattle Jews, this was a hate crime, not a crime committed by someone who was mentally ill. And this, I think, is the tragedy that is beyond the actual tragedy of the shootings. American Jews had a chance to understand the difference between anti-Semitism and mental illness and they chose to see themselves as victims of a Muslim extremist, rather than a man who himself was a victim of his own demons.
Naveed Haq was not Osama bin Laden. If anything, he was Arthur Bremer. Men whose delusions and twisted imaginations combined all sorts of hatred and set them on a homicidal rampage. Naveed Haq needed treatment, not punishment. Besides, life in a mental asylum for violent felons wouldn’t have been a vacation.
Southern Poverty Law Center
When Brenda Bentz was considering which speakers to invite for this conference, she had no lack of Muslims with deep expertise on these subjects. But we wanted non-Muslim experts on racial hatred to speak as well. So Brenda invited Mark Potok, the chief researcher of the Southern Poverty Law Center to address us. Both Brenda and I were impressed that SPLC had recently added to its national list of prominent hate groups several Islamophobic organizations like Pam Geller’s Stop the Islamization of America and the Jewish Task Force, a successor to the Jewish Defense League. And Mark wanted to come.
It seemed that SPLC might be ready to branch out from its bread and butter reliance on white supremacist groups to include far-right anti-Muslim scapegoat groups as well. However, Brenda and a number of us were disappointed when Potok and SPLC’s president informed us that because CAIR was a co-sponsor of the conference, SPLC couldn’t participate. Though I don’t know a whole lot about SPLC’s internal structure and politics, you can be sure that there are many liberal Jews among its major donors. The group’s president, Richard Cohen, seems concerned among other things about preserving his six-figure paycheck by not rocking the boat in any substantial way. Even liberal Jews get spooked by spurious charges that CAIR supports Hamas and Islamist terror. It probably won’t even help much that CAIR publicly approved of the death of Osama bin Laden. Some people are just too frightened to give up those fears.
Apparently, the campaign of demonization by the likes of Peter King and Frank Gaffney prevented even a group like SPLC from associating itself, in even the most distant way, with a mainstream Muslim entity like CAIR. This is what hate, fear and ignorance does to us, folks. It twists our judgment, prevents us from trusting our instincts. It turns us away from alliances we should be making with like-minded individuals and groups to advance our respective goals. I don’t know whether my primary emotion should be anger or disappointment regarding SPLC. Mostly I just feel sorry for their caution and ultimately cowardice. Groups like this who refuse to address the most divisive issues of the day out of such fear, either are, or will shortly be irrelevant to the concerns of most Americans. If we want to make a difference as a religious community or as NGOs, we have to take a stand, even if we risk alienating those sitting on the fence.
Mosque-Synagogue Twinning
Now, I want to tell you about another small local tragedy with which I was intimately involved. The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding was founded by New York Rabbi Marc Schneier. It organizes a mosque-synagogue Twinning project each year that is devoted to education around the issues of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Several years ago, I spent months with my friend, Jeff Siddiqui, desperately searching for two such partners here in Seattle. We had a very hard time of it, frankly. This was just after the Haq shooting and memories may’ve been tender on both sides.
At my synagogue, Congregation Beth Sholom, our rabbi enthusiastically agreed to participate. She delegated me to search for a local Muslim partner. With Jeff’s help I identified MAPS as our Muslim partner. I had a wonderful meeting with several mosque members and we mapped out what I thought would be a warm, stimulating series of programs for both communities. We’d go to MAPS and they would come to us. We’d pray there and they would pray with us, much like Imam Rauf did so movingly here in Church yesterday night. Our rabbi would address them and their imam would address us, each from our respective religious altars.
Then I reported back to the rabbi. In the meantime, the Stand With Us members of the congregation had pressured her into backing off on her commitment. She apologetically told me the time wasn’t quite right to do this. She didn’t know how she could’ve possibly agreed to an imam speaking from the bima of the synagogue. It just couldn’t be done, she told me. She needed at most another month to bring the shul’s membership and leadership around. She promised the idea for the program would not die and that she was committed to making it happen.
It never did. And my relationship with this rabbi has never been the same nor will it likely ever be.
The issue of Muslim-Jewish relations is too important to allow our leaders to fumble their commitments to it. There are other communal leaders who try to mollify both sides. Two years ago, the rabbi at Temple De Hirsh Sinai sponsored a highly-partisan Jewish federation program at which representatives of Aipac and the Israeli consul general for the Pacific NW spoke about the dangers posed by Iran to the Middle East and the entire world. They claimed it was seeking to develop nuclear weapons and that it supported terrorism, among other things. The fact that Israel had nuclear weapons and engaged in wars against its neighbors was not considered relevant to the discussion. After the program ended I asked the rabbi how he could allow his temple to a venue for such partisan propaganda.
Unfortunately, this escalated into a heated discussion during which he affirmed that he was in favor of regime change in Iran. This same rabbi invited Prof. John Esposito, a colleague of Prof. Haddad’s, to speak a few days from now at his temple about the role and history of Islam in America. There is a major disconnect among some Jews regarding relations with Muslims and Islam. Like Rabbi Weiner, they seem to think they can compartmentalize Islam into good guys and bad. That they can demonize bad Muslims in Iran while embracing good ones here at home. I am not arguing that the Iranian regime is worthy of anyone’s support. But I am arguing that rhetoric which accuses the Iranian regime of being mass murderers and supports its violent overthrow, while ignoring the negative role that Israel often plays, is not conducive to constructive dialogue with any Muslim, whether Iranian or American.
Peter King Hearings
After 9/11, the Republican Party discovered there was gold in them thar’ hills of Islamophobia and Muslim-bashing. It was joined in this by a group I call Jewish neocons, whose hatred of Islam is bound up with a devotion to a far-right brand of Israeli nationalism which embraces the settler movement. That is how Peter King and Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy created a match made in heaven. With the new Republican majority in the House, King became chair of the Committee on Homeland Security. Looking for an issue to call his own, and hailing from a state with a substantial Jewish population, he made common cause with Gaffney over the alleged issue of Sharia law and the alleged plot by Muslims to take over the U.S. government and replace it with one governed by Sharia.
King’s hearings were originally conceived very much in the mold of Gaffney’s histrionics which warn of the Muslim menace to American life as we know it. But due to critical media coverage and criticism from fellow members of Congress, King presented a still offensive, but watered-down version in his hearings last month.
Anti-Sharia Movement
Gaffney is joined in his anti-sharia jihad by Jewish far-right figures like David Yerushalmi. The latter, who is a devout Orthodox Jewish attorney and supporter of the settler movement in Israel, is Gaffney’s chief legal counsel. Mother Jones has profiled the Yerushalmi-Gaffney national campaign to write anti-sharia sentiment into state law. Such provisions have either passed, or are being seriously discussed in 11 states. Yerushalmi is the author of such bills and paid handsome consulting fees no doubt for his “expertise,” and much sought after on the Tea Party circuit.
I’m pleased to tell you that the organized Jewish community is beginning to wake up to the perils of the anti-Sharia movement because it could hit Jews where they live. Just as Muslims conform their religious lives to Sharia so observant Jews conform theirs to halacha. Just as Sharia may be applied to normally civil functions like marriage, divorce and estate planning; so too Jews often use halacha in place of civil code in these important life milestones. If state laws criminalize the application of Sharia to civil matters then there is no reason this wouldn’t happen to halacha as well.
I want to tell you something that may be a bit cynical. In truth, I don’t think most observant Jews would normally care to make common cause with American Muslims on this issue. But it’s the beauty of the American system that you must create political coalitions if you wish for your own communal, religious or ethnic interests to be addressed. In our system, if you try to go it alone you won’t go far. That encourages groups to look beyond their own narrow interests and consider the interests of other groups when they overlap yours. It is this making of alliances, as opposed to confining oneself to a separatist ghetto, that makes this country great.
The Yerushalmis and Gaffneys favor an atomized America in which every individual or group is out for its own good and some mythical Judeo-Christian majority can impose its own will on the rest of us. That’s not my America and I know it’s not yours either. Yerushalmi’s views are so far to the right that Mother Jones, the Jewish Forward and I in my blog have called him different variations of the phrase “Jewish white supremacist.” Hard to believe that there can be such a person or thing, given Jewish history in the last century. But I’m sorry to say that there can be and is.
Yerushalmi didn’t take kindly to my critique of his political views. He threatened to sue me for libel in Arizona, where he resides, making himself right at home with the anti-immigrant movement that presides in that state. I, of course, had to scurry to find pro bono counsel to represent me in what I feared could be a long costly case.
But in a bit of providence, the Anti-Defamation League came out with a public statement denouncing Yerushalmi and likening his views to the white-supremacist New World Order. I’m guessing that the anti-Muslim attorney decided that now might not be the right time to sue someone for calling him a white supremacist. He withdrew his threat.
Yerushalmi also crusaded against the Khalil Gibran Academy in New York City and its Muslim principal, Debbie Almontaser, eventually getting her fired. He sued her for libel too and she won at both the lower court and appeals court level. She also won a substantial settlement from the City of New York for wrongful termination.
Ground Zero Mosque
Yerushalmi has also made common cause with Pamela Geller, author of the Atlas Shrugged blog, and the chief instigator of the campaign against what she branded the ‘Ground Zero mosque,’ an institution with which our keynote speaker, Imam Faisal Rauf, was intimately involved for some time. I watched the Jewish-led campaign against the mosque– conveniently timed during the 2010 Congressional election campaign–with horror. The arguments against it made no sense whatsoever. They were clearly fueled by fear and ignorance. They mixed up the tragedy perpetrated by Al Qaeda against this country on 9/11 with an entirely separate matter of building a Muslim house of worship. In the minds of the hysterics, there was no difference between the two. This is a profoundly un-American attitude.
One the hallmarks of America’s greatness is our tolerance toward religions. Our Founding Fathers wisely chose not to create a national religion and this in turn enabled America to become a powerful engine of democracy, which could incorporate hundreds of ethnic groups and their respective religions into a single whole. In diversity there is strength. Alternatively, you’ll remember that slogan on our dollar bills: e pluribus unum (“out of many, one”).
But contrary to Yerushalmi and Geller, I don’t believe we become one by denying our difference, by papering them over or by forcing those who are different to conform to some artificial notion of what is properly American. We gain the strength to be united by coming together over our shared interests and by respecting our differences. That’s the beauty of America.
The opponents of the Park51 mosque lost sight of an American trademark: religious freedom. In this country, you can worship your God and your religion as you please. You can build a house of worship where you want and how you want as long as you obey zoning codes. America doesn’t police religions as other countries do. We don’t tell people where they can build a church, synagogue or mosque. We don’t interfere in their religious teachings. We don’t demonize them because their religion is different from ours. The movement led by Pam Geller, David Yerushalmi and Frank Gaffney which seeks to criminalize being a Muslim is profoundly offensive to American values. I’m proud to say this as an American and as a Jew.
Masadur Rahman and Mohamed Zaghloul interviewed after being ejected from flight for their 'Arab garb' (KCNC)
Yesterday, a pilot for a Delta Airlines feeder flight in Memphis threw two Muslim clerics off his plane saying that some passengers “might” be uncomfortable with them aboard. Their crime? They wore “Arab garb.” That’s the sole criteria used by this pilot to determine it was too dangerous to fly with them:
Two Muslim religious leaders say they were removed from a plane in Memphis on Friday and were told the pilot refused to fly with them aboard. One of the imams, Masudur Rahman, said they had cleared security but were asked to leave their Delta Connection flight to Charlotte, N.C. A Transportation Security Administration spokesman confirmed the incident and said it was not initiated by that agency. Delta Air Lines said the flight was operated by Atlantic Southeast Airlines, which said the inicident is being investigatd. Mr. Rahman said they were told that the pilot refused to accept them because some passengers could be uncomfortable. Mr. Rahman said that he was wearing traditional Indian clothing and that his companion, Mohamed Zaghloul of the Islamic Association of Greater Memphis, wore Arab garb.
I understand a pilot has complete discretion to decide who flies with him and doesn’t have to explain his reasons. But an airline shouldn’t have to explain firing this dude either. And if they don’t I think a boycott against Delta Airlines and Atlantic Southeast Airlines is in order. Against Delta till it cancels its contract with Atlantic Southeast and against the latter for employing this Neanderthal.
If anyone can get me the e mail address for Delta’s and Atlantic Southeast’s CEOs I’d be happy to post them here. Thanks to the reader who researched info about Atlantic Southeast:
Brad Holt, President and Chief Operating Officer
Atlantic Southeast Airlines
A-Tech Center
990 Toffie Terrace
Atlanta, GA 30354-1363
Norquist: sympathy for the devil? The Muslim devil, that is.
After reading this post at Think Progress, and the absolute wackiness it attributes to Frank Gaffney, it occured to me that either he’s a radical plant out to destroy the Republican Party from within, or he’s the Party’s worst nightmare. This guy is waging global jihad against, of all people, Grover Norquist! He’s the patron saint of the anti-taxers, fer chrissakes! It just boggles the mind. Here are a few of Gaffney’s choicer comments about this “friend of the Muslim Brotherhood:”
GAFFNEY: “One might ask, how did an organization like this [Norquist's] with Brotherhood ties and personnel and funding, get into the conservative circles?…This is how that has happened. [Puts Grover Norquist's picture up on the PowerPoint.] I don’t know how many of you were in the room when he addressed this very meeting earlier today. But I have had it as my personal burden for the past 12 years to have been trying to warn conservatives that one of their own has been actively involved both enabling and empowering Muslim Brotherhood influence operations against our movement and our country. And I must tell you, I think this is time to bring it to a stop.”
Gaffney has long made a name for himself with fabulous claims like the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the federal government and even the conservative movement.
Other than the fact that Gaffney has taken leave of his senses, what is one to make of such lunacy? Is he deliberately trying to destroy the Republican Party? Or is he just another True Believer who’s willing to see the Party commit hara-kiri if it doesn’t endorse his cock-eyed view of the political universe.
Daniel Pipes trumpets the fact that Norquist is married to a Palestinian woman and even produces the marriage certificate, as if Norquist would attempt to deny it. When you think of it, for the loop-de-loop crowd this is the equivalent of race-mixing to a bygone era. Imagine sharing one’s bed with such a she-devil and even mixing bodily fluids! The thought of it is enough to make one faint!
And of course, in the Pipesian alternate political universe, this makes Norquist an “agent of Muslim influence” in Washington. Wow, I though that “agent of influence” crap went out of fashion with McCarthy’s 201 Communists in the State Department around 1953 or so!
Pipes even opines that if his wife was a faithful Muslim she could only marry a fellow Muslim, meaning…you guessed it, that Norquist must be a convert to the religion of the devil himself (though Pipes does generously acknowledge they were married in a church). Norquist’s wife too must be a “radical Islamist” because she worked at the Islamic Free Market Institute. Sounds like a hotbed of al Qaeda, doesn’t it? Proof, you ask for? Since when does Daniel Pipes needs proof of anything to bandy about his lunacies?
And it’s no accident that Gaffney’s legal Sancho Panza in this holy war is David Yerushalmi, an ardent anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-minority, anti-woman, pro-settler Jew with views a white supremacist would love.
Tomorrow, Rep. Peter King, one of the most prominent anti-Muslim members of Congress (who wrote a suspense novel about a Congressman who foils an Al Qaeda plot), plans to hold the first of several hearings on the supposed menace posed by the radicalization of American Muslims.
As one who has studied the anti-Muslim movement over the course of the past few years, King’s rhetoric and tone in explaining the rationale for the hearings came right out of the playbook of Steve Emerson, Daniel Pipes, Pam Geller, David Yerushalmi, Robert Spencer and the like. Among the politician’s wild claims is one that “85%” of American mosques are controlled by “radical imams” and that Muslims are “an enemy living amongst us.
Returning to the anti-jihad mafia, King consulted closely with a number of them including Emerson. At their suggestion, he originally had planned to call Aayan Hirsi Ali, a radical anti-Muslim who has made a good living out of publishing books and telling paying audiences of the evils of Islam. She is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Another dropped witness was Walid Phares, a Lebanese Maronite Christian, darling of the anti-jihadi set, star of the lurid Clarion anti-jihadi films, Third Jihad and Iranium, and former Washington DC representative of the Lebanese Phalange, which brought the world among other things, Sabra and Shatilla. The radical right was also under the impression King would call Emerson and Spencer to testify. But he caved on this as well.
This happened in the face of extraordinary pressure from Pres. Obama and others defending the honor and decency of American Muslims, causing him to tone down his witness list and his rhetoric.
Fear of immigrants and 'alien' religions (like Judaism, as in this cartoon) runs historically deep in America
Despite this, elements of King’s harsh anti-Muslim viewpoint remain in the form of a few of the guests. The most noted one being Zuhdi Jasser, a right-wing Republican neocon who is the favorite “good Muslim” trotted out by people like Emerson. Glenn Beck has called him the “Muslim that we were all searching for after 9-11″ and “a voice I trust.” Considering how much Beck hates Muslims, that should tell you a good deal about Jasser’s views of his co-religionists. I’ve profiled Jasser several times in this blog. I even earned a polite request from his lawyer to edit a post I wrote about him (which I naturally refused to do). Media Matters has also profiled him. Unlike Christian Arab Muslim haters like Phares and Brigitte Gabriel, Jasser is Muslim, though a harsh critic of just about everything in American Islam. He’s such a favorite that he’s been the star of not one, but two Clarion Fund films which posit a conspiracy by this country’s Muslims to topple the government and Constitution and replace it with Sharia law. Clarion, you’ll recall, is the producer of a total of three films which take aim at various alleged Islamic conspiracies against western values, the latest one being Iranium, which advocates a military strike against Iran. Clarion is an arm of the pro-settler group, Aish HaTorah.
The N.Y. Times has exposed Rep. King’s own ties to terrorism in his avid fundraising on behalf of the Irish Republican Army, when it was designated a terror group by the U.S. government. The fundraising done in this country for the IRA was largely used to purchase and devise bombs and other weapons used in the IRA struggle against British rule in Northern Ireland. In fact, he defended the IRA’s deadly attacks on civilians:
“If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the I.R.A. for it.”
King even complained that the Secret Service was investigating him for his close ties to Irish terror operatives.
King’s rather unconvincing defense of his actions notes that the IRA didn’t attack Americans (with the implication being that American Muslims would). It seems to me that while the IRA may’ve been different from Al Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups in some respects, they both kill/ed civilians and a lot of them. The fact that the IRA killed British civilians or Irish Protestants and Al Qaeda killed Americans seems meaningless sophistry.
The tone of these hearings invokes a similar hysteria of an earlier era, that of the House Committee on Un-American Affairs (HUAC), which rooted out so-called Reds and radicals from positions of influence in American society. This is an era of the Communist witch-hunt which most Americans today deplore as a badge of shame for this country. It seems to me that without strenuous objection to King’s hearings, he may take us down a similar road. The pols who sat on HUAC too were looking to burnish their careers and score quick, easy political points with their constituents. Like them, Peter King is looking to make a name for himself as a terrorist hunter.
But, just as HUAC was long on outrageous claims and short on results, so King is doing a deep disservice to the vast majority of American Muslims who live lives like ours, share values like ours, and seek the same goals for themselves and their families. Demonizing Muslims is a cheap shot, a political trick. It’s easy to score points on a relatively small, politically vulnerable minority. American politics has a long history of xenophobia regarding the most recent wave of immigrants. In the 19th century it was Know Nothings raving about the Irish Catholic Papist. In the 20th, it was the KKK campaigning against Blacks and Jews. In the 21st century, Muslims become the immigrants du jour of the Know Nothing American right (better known as the Tea Party).
If Peter King and his committee were serious about this subject, they would explore ALL of American Muslim life, not just alleged proclivity toward terrorism. That would be a set of hearings that would teach Americans much more comprehensively about their fellow citizens. Or alternatively, King could study radicalization of many different groups within American society, of which Muslims might be one.
King specifically rejected the latter approach in a statement that betrays his racism:
If we included these other violent events in the hearings, we’d be sending the false signal that we think there’s a security threat equivalency between Al Qaeda and the neo-Nazi movement, or Al Qaeda and gun groups. There is none.”
Mr. King added, “I’m not going to dilute the hearings by including other extremists.”
In the minds of the radical right figures I mentioned above, of course it would dilute the hearings to include other dangerous Americans prone to terrorism, because in their view Muslims are the most prone to violence. Which of course is an odious lie.
Abdullah and Obama: throwing in our lot with the despots (AFP/Getty)
The NY Times notes that some of the most despotic of the U.S.’ Middle Eastern allies have engaged in a full court press on the Obama administration to persuade it that siding with the Egyptian Revolution would be a bad move for the U.S. and for them. Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan and the Gulf States have united (and coordinated?) their assault on the former U.S. position that Mubarak had to “go yesterday, to paraphrase administration spokesperson Robert Gibbs of a few days ago:
Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have each repeatedly pressed the United States not to cut loose Egypt’s president,Hosni Mubarak, too hastily, or to throw its weight behind the democracy movement in a way that could further destabilize the region, diplomats say. One Middle Eastern envoy said that on a single day, he spent 12 hours on the phone with American officials.
There is evidence that the pressure has paid off. On Saturday, just days after suggesting that it wanted immediate change, the administration said it would support an “orderly transition” managed by Vice President Omar Suleiman. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that Mr. Mubarak’s immediate resignation might complicate, rather than clear, Egypt’s path to democracy, given the requirements of Egypt’s Constitution.
“Everyone is taking a little breath,” said a diplomat from the region, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was discussing private conversations. “There’s a sense that we’re getting our message through.”
While each country has its own concerns, all worry that a sudden, chaotic change in Egypt would destabilize the region or, in the Arab nations, even jeopardize their own leaders, many of whom are also autocrats facing restive populations.
The money quote in this passage is in the last sentence. This anti-progressive “Quartet” is prepared to sell the Egyptian protest movement down the river on behalf of “regional stability,” which means their own personal power and hides. What I don’t understand is how this lies in the U.S. interest to retain Mubarak and his pack of cronies and abandon the Revolution. Saudi Arabian oil? OK, that’s a consideration. The Israel lobby? That too is a consideration Obama has to take into account.
But when you balance that out against the prevailing winds in the Middle East as expressed by the Tunisian and Egyptian movements for political change and the winds that are blowing through other Arab nations like Yemen, Algeria, Libya, etc. it seems that acquiescing in the conniving of the despots puts us clearly on the wrong side of history. If you look at the broad path of political development in regions like Latin America, central and Eastern Europe, and elsewhere the trends are moving toward political reform, the development of civil societies, and empowering the previously disenfranchised. While I wouldn’t make this an across the board generalization since there are individual examples that contradict my claim, it seems clear to me that the Middle East (specifically north Africa, Yemen, Turkey and possibly Lebanon) is generally moving in this direction.
If we betray this developing movement for the sake of a the mess of porridge represented by Saudi oil or Israel lobby muscle, it will be not just an opportunity missed, it would mark another nail in the coffin of the U.S. as a major world player whose views are solicited and influential. The young people in Tahrir Square, for better or worse, expect something from America. They expect us to live up to our professed values. If we sacrifice them on the altar of real politick, they will ignore us going forward as having anything relevant to say to them. If they eventually take power, we will mean little or nothing to them.
Yet another indication of how tone-deaf we have become in this quotation from Hillary Clinton:
“I understand the concerns of everybody in the region,” Mrs. Clinton said Sunday. She said that she had spoken to King Abdullah II of Jordan and that President Obama had made calls to other leaders. State Department officials, she said, were constantly speaking with their counterparts in the region.
Well, no she doesn’t understand the concerns of “everybody” in the region. She only understands the interests and concerns of the ruling elites, who are increasingly isolated and out of touch. So if she wants to throw in the U.S.’ lot with them and ignore the actual people who live in those countries and feel betrayed by these same thugs, then be my guest. But don’t fool yourself into thinking that you actually understand or care about the potential future leaders of these nations once they are on the path of political reform.
This is the type of scaremongering nonsense she’s listening to from the region’s autocrats:
One Arab diplomat likened the democracy movement to a train fueled by university students and human rights advocates.
“Eventually, those students will have to get off that train and go back to school, and the human rights people will have to go back to work, and you know who will be on the train when it finally rolls into the station?” the diplomat asked. “The Muslim Brotherhood.”
The Times article takes pains to note that Joe Biden gave Suleiman a tongue-lashing for dissing the calls for democracy of the Cairo demonstrators. But the problem with this is the same one we had when we threw in our lots with South Vietnamese dictators during the Vietnam War. They may be sons of bitches, but they’re our sons of bitches. And once they’re your son of a bitch, they’re an albatross around your neck as well. You have little leverage over a Suleiman when you tell him he must renounce the very structures which enable him to cling to power. He doesn’t see his role as you do. You may see him as a transitional figure. But there’s nothing in his political vocabulary to account for that and he won’t stand for it. As witness this clueless statement in which Suleiman threatens a military coup unless protestors go home:
Mr. Suleiman warned the protesters, most of whom are opposed to any negotiations while Mr. Mubarak is in power, that the only alternative to talks is a “a coup.”
“And we want to avoid that — meaning uncalculated and hasty steps that produce more irrationality,” he said, according to the official news agency.
“There will be no ending of the regime, nor a coup, because that means chaos,” Mr. Suleiman said. And he warned the protesters not to attempt more civil disobedience, calling it “extremely dangerous.” He added, “We absolutely do not tolerate it.”
Is this really the wagon to which we want to hitch our star? Do we want to be on the side of such a bloody disaster when it happens? Do we really think we have enough leverage with these tin pot dictators that we can stop them from perpetrating mass carnage if they perceive themselves under threat or in jeopardy? I wouldn’t put my money on it if I were Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.
Here is what the real Egypt wants and expects from us:
Many at the protests buttonholed Americans to express deep disappointment with President Obama, shaking their heads at his ambiguous messages about an orderly transition. They warned that the country risked incurring a resentment from the Egyptian people that could last long after Mr. Mubarak is gone.
Do we have the guts to recognize this and act accordingly?
If not, we’re sentencing ourselves and Egypt to a future cataclysm which will rid, or at least attempt to rid, the nation of the same thugs it is now trying to eject. The only difference will be that you will have the example of this failed revolution before your eyes and people will want to ensure they do everything possible not to lose next time. That may mean rivers of blood in Tahrir Square, not just charging camels and horses, but tanks plowing down thousands of protestors. It may mean a truly revolutionary cabal organizing against the regime and using violence to take power. It opens the political space to all sorts of potentially bad actors exploiting the deep-rooted frustrations of the nation’s masses. Yes, perhaps even Al Qaeda-like forces. But they key is to recognize we’re not there yet. We’re in a potentially good space and should make the most of it while we can.
There are neocon voices speaking of Obama “losing” Egypt to the Islamists. But the truth is that Egypt is his to lose if he does nothing now to embrace democracy and the opening toward reform. The problem is Obama isn’t a politician who sees into the future. He’s focussed on short-term interests. And that is a tremendous weakness of his presidency and his politics. Whatever you want to say about Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, they were smart enough to map out a sophisticated global strategy in their foreign policy which resulted in the tremendous achievements of the opening to China, among others (OK, let’s leave aside Chile which wasn’t so good). Obama displays none of that forward-thinking needed in this situation. And our country and Egypt will suffer for that.
Israel too plays an interesting role in this Quartet. Though it is not ruled by the same types of despots as Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States (or Jordan for that matter), it has the same retrograde interests in maintaining a status quo that oppresses the broad masses of the populaces of these nations. Israel, at least as its current elite sees its interests, needs to keep a lid on the aspirations of the common man and woman because Israel senses that democratization will hurt them. It will establish new allies for the Palestinian cause and further isolate Israel in the region.
Of course, a more proactive Israeli policy seeking rapprochement with the frontline states and resolution of the Israeli Palestinian conflict would put Israel in a commanding position as a potential regional economic leader. And Israel’s democracy, if it were ever fully realized, could also serve as an example. Instead, I’m sorry to say, Israel is frittering away these prospective advantages with rear-guard actions like the ones outlined above, which only increase the chances that it will be further marginalized should the winds of political change continue as I expect.
Egyptian Muslims and Copts parade through Tahrir Square together (Amel Pain/EPA)
Bibi Netanyahu is shreying about the Muslim Brotherhood in terms redolent of Al Qaeda. Mubarak uses the Brotherhood and a combination of impending chaos and religious holy war as the reason he can’t relinquish power. Obama seems to have drunk the Kool Aid as well. So I want to know: what the hell are they worried about? Look at this picture and explain to me, what the hell they’re all worried about.
NY Times report says that yesterday while Egyptian Muslims prayed in the Square, Copts stood guard protecting them. And today it was the Copts turn to hold Mass while Muslims stood guard.
Look people, you can harbor fears of Al Qaeda on the Nile all you want, but don’t pretend it has anything to do with reality. Of course, in the fervor of the moment many wonderful things happen that can later be undone. But I think the spirit represented in this image will hold true if Mubarak, Suleiman, Obama, Clinton and Netanyahu just would get out of the way and let this thing happen the way it should.
Egypt is a nation in which religions have co-existed for thousands of years. Why can’t they coexist with a change of government there?
Interestingly, we Jews were enslaved by a few Egyptian Pharaohs way back. We won our freedom and went our separate ways. But the Pharaohs remained and found others to enslave. Now the Egyptian people themselves are enslaved and seek to break the yoke of a latter-day Pharoah.
Let the Egyptian people decide how to run their country. No more backroom deals.
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Tomorrow, Rep. Peter King, one of the most prominent anti-Muslim members of Congress (who wrote a suspense novel about a Congressman who foils an Al Qaeda plot), plans to hold the first of several hearings on the supposed menace posed by the radicalization of American Muslims.
