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Israeli prime minister Netanyahu has called the ambassadors of ten of the nations which supported the settlement resolution on the carpet and given them a tongue lashing. He’s reduced contacts with the officials of these countries (minus the U.S., of course, since we’re too important to stiff in this fashion). He’s also cut a $7-million UN contribution his country was scheduled to make. He’s announced hundreds of new settlement housing starts in retaliation. The man is fuming. But it’s all a show. Full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.
As part of the righteous indignation Netanyahu has displayed, he railed against the UN for wasting time condemning Israel while hundreds of thousands die in Syria. That’s a typical hasbara diversion tactic, deflect attention from Israeli crimes by pointing to the larger crimes of others.
But there are a few problems with the analogy: first, while all the frontline states (Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan) have offered refuges to millions of Syrian refugees, Israel hasn’t offered a haven to a single Syrian refugee. It has offered medical aid, shelter and military equipment to the al-Nusra rebels fighting Pres. Assad. It’s done this for purely pragmatic reasons, hoping to weaken the regime and its allies, Hezbollah and Iran.
But Israel, just as it’s refused to offer refugee status to any of the 60,000 African refugees there, has also refused to provide a haven for any of the Syrians fleeing the bloodshed there. Israel offers shelter to the world’s Jews, but it offers a cold shoulder to non-Jews, and especially Arabs. This is in keeping with the racialist philosophy of the ruling Likud regime.
Another problem with the claim that the world stands idly by while Syria burns: we must include Israel itself among the bystanders. The General Assembly just laid the framework for a sweeping investigation of potential crimes against humanity by forces fighting there. Of course, Syria, Russia, Iran and their allies voted against the resolution. The usual suspects voted for it as well (U.S., EU states, etc.). But there was one curious absence (in Hebrew) as Ronen Bergman noted in Yediot: Israel. It was nowhere to be found. It went AWOL on an issue of international moral significance.
Further, Israel touts itself (falsely) as the physical address of world Jewry. After the lessons of the Holocaust, one would think that Zionism would feel compelled to bear witness to such suffering. Much as I took issue with Elie Wiesel’s politics in the last decades of his life, I can’t help but think he would be repelled by Israel’s moral turpitude.
This is further evidence that Zionism, at least the Likudist incarnation, lacks any moral center. It is a set of interests, rather narrowly defined, and devoid of ethical content. One must ask whether, given our history, the Jewish people require such an entity to speak in its name. Haven’t we seen enough suffering and bloodshed through the centuries to know that a nation based on hate, ignorance and intolerance must never speak for us?
What a horrible irony that Israel has been transformed into what the worst of humanity has inflicted on us.
So why? Why did Israel abscond from its moral obligation? That’s easy: Russia. Netanyahu knows which way the wind is blowing. He sees Russia was willing to intervene in the civil war and Obama wasn’t. He sees the Russians came out winners on Aleppo. He also welcomes a new U.S. president who will give him everything he wants on any number of issues. He’s a kid in a candy store. What’s more, Donald and Vladimir are kissing cousins. The winds of war in the region are shifting toward Moscow.
Putin asked him to abstain and Bibi did the poodle thing. Reminds one of Tony Blair wagging his tail as Bush fed him treats on Iraq. Rivers of blood flow, but boys will be boys. And boys love to play in the sandbox with the big kids.
While there is ample circumstantial evidence that Sect.of State John Kerry was behind the UN Resolution condemning the settlements, there is zero evidence that Putin asked Bibi to abstain in a war crimes investigation. It is more likely that Israel’s non-involvement with a war crimes investigation is just part of Bibi’s general hissy fit over the UN Resolution.
And BTW. According to Ricard’s fantastical claims, Israel commits criminal conspiracy with, and aides and abets, the Syrian terror group, al Nusra. So why Israel support war crimes investigations in Syria?
And I do mean fantastical claims, unless is this infant ‘al Nusra’.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/30/world/middleeast/despite-decades-of-enmity-israel-quietly-aids-syrian-civilians.html
And regarding Richard’s false claim that Israelis are ‘standing by while Syria burns’, open this link and open your wallets.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/30/world/middleeast/despite-decades-of-enmity-israel-quietly-aids-syrian-civilians.html
Richard. You go first and set an example.
Ooh. Ooh. Is that snark? Dreadfully sorry. My bad.
Israel has deep reservations regarding the validity and integrity of UN led investigations. It also was far from the only country to abstain (or more precisely in Israel’s case – the delegation didn’t show up to vote, but remained outside of the chamber) – there were 52 absentions in total (and 15 nays, 105 ayes).
Seeing that the same session passed 2 measures targeting Israel –
“Permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and of the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan over their natural resources”
and –
“Oil slick on Lebanese shores”
Israel’s view of the UN’s impartiality and fairness was all the more strengthened.
@lepxii:
You’re makin’ it up as you go along. Not even the hasbara ministry has made that argument. So you’re getting ahead of yr hasbara masters. Might want to check back with Hasbara Central to ensure you’re not going off the reservation.
The argument about there being other countries abstaining from the resolution is Hasbara Diversion 101: classic. It doesn’t matter what 52 other countries did. It matters what Israel did because Israel claims to be a witness before the world to genocide. 52 other countries don’t make such a claim. Not to mention that those 52 countries are probably compromised by ties to Syria, Russia, Iran, etc.
Don’t you think it’s possible that Israel received some sort of “promise” from Russia regarding the settlement resolution?
@ DH: I’m not sure Israel needed a “promise” from Russia. Bibi & Vlady are bosom-buddies. They speak regularly & visit each other regularly. Israel has interests in Syria as does Russia. Israel occupies Palestine as Russia occupied Crimea. All of those interests are larger than a UN resolution on settlements.
“That’s a typical hasbara diversion tactic, deflect attention from Israeli crimes by pointing to the larger crimes of others”
Well, this “deflection” points to a grave injustice. Injustice to the victims of the greater (much greater) crimes. The international resources are limited. putting disproportional attention to Israel necessarily means that less attention (and resources) are given to the victims who need the most urgent assistance.
It is also brings about a scene from 1950’s Alabama: an African American family drives a car and is stopped by a policeman who states to the driver: “you drove 5 mph faster than the speed limit”. The driver asks: “and what about them?”, pointing to the numerous cars going by driven by white people at a speed 30 mph above the speed limit. For that the policeman replies angrily: “you broke the law and don’t change the subject!”.
As for Syrian refugees and Israel:
First of all, you are wrong. Israel took in scores of injured Syrian children.
Second, do you know for a fact that Syrians try to enter Israel to ask for shelter? and why do you think that Syrian refugees will want to go to Israel, a country which has been their worse enemy for many decades, when they can go to a fellow Arab country such as Jordan?
And more generally, Israel has took in millions of refugees since its establishment, most of them from developing Asian and African countries. And absorbing such a great number of refugees is a huge economic and social challenge. The facts that those refugees were Jewish doesn’t make it any less difficult. So why should Israel be expected to take more refugees? when the developed European countries (who are not only rich but also directly responsible to much of the world’s refugee problem with their colonial and neo-colonial history) will do their share and take refuges in the same proportional numbers as Israel did, than it will be logical to demand that Israel will take more.
and as for the supposable moral obligation of Israel: All humans should assume responsibility to the suffering of others. Why should the Jews be expected to show greater responsibility (with the difficulties attached to it) than others? Because they suffered? this comes very close to punish the victim. I am not aware of anyone blaming African American people not doing enough to fight against the slavery that still exists in certain parts of the world. Nor should they be blamed.
If anyone should be expected to show greater sensitivity to the problem of reguggeees it is those nations who refused to take in Jews that were attempting to escape the Nazi’s.
@ Amico: This will be your last comment for the next 24 hours. Do not violate the 3 comment a day rule. I’ve warned you about this because you’ve violated it before & you’re now moderated. Be careful.
This comment is also far off topic. Comments must related directly to the topic. American race relations is very far off topic.
Another comment rule: if you make claims, especially ones that attempt to contradict statements I’ve made, you MUST support them with credible sources. There is absolutely no source to support this. None. Israel has treated children in hospitals. But it has not “taken in” children in the sense of giving them homes or accepting them as refugees. You will either provide support for this precise claim or withdraw it. And you will do this within 36 hrs. If you cannot support this & do not withdraw it you may lose your comment privileges.
How could a Syrian do this? Go up to the border fence where scores of Syrians were mown down by Israeli gunfire 2 yrs ago & demand refuge shortly before being shot at? I assure you if Israel announced it would accept even a single refugee there would a queue of thousands within hours at the ceasefire line.
Another lie. Even if you include Jews from these nations in the count you don’t get to millions. Israel did take in several thousand Vietnamese boat people in the 1980s. Those were the only refugees it ever accepted in large numbers. Again, you will withdraw this claim within 24 hrs or face eviction here. Unless you can support the exact claim you made (no amending or changing it after the fact).
Please don’t do violence to my native language. Reading that word you invented was like fingernails scratching on a blackboard. As for the substance of what you wrote: so you claim Israel has no moral obligation?
Precisely because we’ve suffered more than others. No more and no less. And the fact that you are obtuse to this obligation indicates your level of Zio-brainwashing which has emptied moral considerations from your vocabulary. That is sad.
Having a sense of moral obligation is an honor, not a punishment. I feel this honor every hour of every day.
African Americans do fight against slavery in the world along with hundreds of thousands of white people who have been sensitized to this evil by my own nation’s history.
Precisely why Germany has taken in the lion’s share of Syrian refugees. It, unlike Israel, has learned some positive lessons from its terrible history.
What irks me about your cluelessness is that you presume (falsely) to understand refugees, what motivates them, how they think. When you haven’t the faintest idea. Syrians would seek refuge in Israel for the same reason any refugee would seek refuge in any country, even the most unlikely. Why would a man stow away in the wheel well of a passenger jet plane seeking to leave his country for a safer place? Why would 60,000 Africans trek across hundreds of miles of desert to reach Israel, where they know no one, and face a life of total uncertainty?
@ Richard
“Israel did take in several thousand Vietnamese boat people in the 1980s.”
The State of Israel accepted around 380 Vietnamese boat people in the 70’s, later most went on to Europe and the US to reunite with their families (cf. wiki and various articles in the Israeli press).
I remember reading an article by Elisabeth Tzurkov a couple of years ago: since the 1950’s Israel has granted refugee status to less than 300.
When Amico writes this: “Israel has took in millions of refugees since its establishment, most of them from developing Asian and African countries.” I guess he’s thinking of Jewish refugees/immigrants, but it’s still a huge lie. There were around 1 million Mizrahi Jews pre-State of Israel, and many didn’t go to Israel (the majority of Jews from Algeria went to France, in 1962), and Ethiopia and India hardly made up the gap to his ‘millions’
@ Deir Yassin: Thanks for the correction. I misremembered the number of Vietnamese Israel accepted.
I don’t know what Amico was thinking when he made his claim about “millions” of refugees. He would have to be including Jewish refugees. But in doing so he only proves my point that Israel accepts Jews but denies non-Jews in need of refuge, which you’d expect from a Jewish state, but not from a democratic one. So clearly Israel isn’t a democratic state. At least in this regard.
I’m still waiting for him to withdraw his comment before deciding whether to ban him entirely.
“This comment is also far off topic. Comments must related directly to the topic. American race relations is very far off topic”.
You really did not understand that the speeding story was a metaphor?
I wrote that Israel took in scores of injured Syrian children. As you wrote it yourself, I don’t need to give any evidence to that. I did not say that Israel gave them citizenship or settled them in Israel (as it did with few hundred boat people). If this is what you understood from my comment than obviously I agree that it is not the case. My point was and still is that Israel took care of them. This means that Israel is not indifferent to their suffering (and that is the part that I indeed contradict you about) and it is not different from letting victims to your country temporarily until their situation improves. The whole condition of being refugee is supposed to be temporary.
“How could a Syrian do this? Go up to the border fence where scores of Syrians were mown down by Israeli gunfire 2 yrs ago”
Nothing of the sorts happened two years ago (and I can’t give evidence for something that did not happen. Perhaps you refer to what happened in 2011 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Israeli_border_demonstrations#Syria): ” In Syria, the events were organized by phone and internet by Palestinian refugees, most of them university students independent of any political faction, in response to the call for a “Third Palestinian Intifada” on Facebook.[30][31] Demonstrators gathered near the Israeli-Syrian ceasefire line waving Palestinian flags, and then marched toward and breached the fence, entering the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.[23][32][33] The first wave of demonstrators to move toward the fence were stopped by Syrian police who were later overtaken when a second group arrived.[33] The sole Israeli patrol present was similarly overwhelmed and opened fire on the demonstrators.[33] Four demonstrators were killed and dozens injured.[4]”. So, they were not refugees from the war in Syria but demonstrators and 4 (not scores) were shot to death. Their shooting is something I find appalling but that’s a different issue entirely.
“Even if you include Jews from these nations in the count you don’t get to millions. Israel did take in several thousand Vietnamese boat people in the 1980s. (…). Again, you will withdraw this claim within 24 hrs or face eviction here”
You want to “evict” me? Go ahead. The fact is that Israel did take in more than a million refugees (Jewish, as I wrote) including holocaust survivors from Europe and many many Jews that were pressed to leave their homes and their property in Africa and Asia. For the exact numbers you can read for example here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyah): from the last table you can learn that following the foundation of Israel (I subtract from the total numbers those the came in before 1948) 543,000 from Africa, 458,000 from Asia and about 120,000 holocaust survivors from Europe. This totals 1.1 millions (and the current population in Israel is less than 9 millions-when most of them arrived it was much much smaller). And this quite a conservative estimations. Now you can say: “but you said millions and point only to 1.1 millions!!!!!!”). If you want to play that game-fine. Go ahead and “evict” me. I will not withdraw my whole argument for one “s”. However, I would point that if you give the term “refugees” to those who are second generation and third generation of refuges than it does become “millions”. If you don’t- I assume that means that you agree that most of those considered today “Palestinian refugees” are not really refugees. One can not hold the stick from both ends.
“Please don’t do violence to my native language. Reading that word you invented was like fingernails scratching on a blackboard”
What word? “Supposable”?
Definition of supposable
capable of being supposed
:
conceivable
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/supposable
” so you claim Israel has no moral obligation?”
No, I claim that it has, but no than any other country.
“Precisely because we’ve suffered more than others”
Says who? By what moral code?
My moral code is based on one basic principle: Don’t do to others what you don’t want to be done to you. I don’t need to have a history of hunger to know that I don’t want starve and thus not allow others to starve. All humans and states have the same moral obligation. I give no one the excuse that they can be more indifferent because they never suffered in a certain way.
“Having a sense of moral obligation is an honor, not a punishment”
Sure. But when others expect from you more than they expect others or themselves than they will scold you (or worse) when you do not follow their expectations.
“Precisely why Germany has taken in the lion’s share of Syrian refugees. It, unlike Israel, has learned some positive lessons from its terrible history.”
But I was talking about the European countries that refused to take in Jews in substantial numbers-that is the UK, France etc (and sadly also the USA as happened with the MS St. Louis ocean liner affair- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_St._Louis). Currently their attitude regarding taking in refugees is not much better and the numbers they are willing to take in are proportionally much smaller than the amount of Jewish refugees Israel accepted.
“What irks me about your cluelessness is that you presume (falsely) to understand refugees…”
I don’t know why you think you no on the matter more than I do. The simple fact is that the border between Syria and Israel is very close to the border between Syria and Jordan and the border between Syria and Lebanon. From the perspective of a Syrian looking for shelter, it makes much more sense to go to a fellow Arab country than to go to the country of my enemies.
Last, perhaps you will claim I did not satisfy your demands and ban me. Again, that’s fine. However, it will be decent (and courageous) of you to publish my comment and let the readers form their own impression.
@ Amico:
Not the point. My point was expressly that Israel only cares for Jews and harbors no sympathy for non-Jewish refugees. So for Israel to take in Jewish refugees is beside the point. THe racist nature of Israel demands nothing less. In fact, I’d be shocked if Israel ever rejected Jewish refugees in need. THe real test is whether Israel responds with mercy toward non-Jewish refugees. We’ve already seen that it summarily rejects them in violation of international humanitarian law (in the case of African refugees).
I have been speaking the English language for over 60 years and no one I’ve ever heard speak the language has ever used that word. I suggest that you not do so either unless you wish to have native speakers stare at you.
Israel has the same international humanitarian obligations other nations have & it refuses to honor them.
How’s this for a moral code? “Remember the stranger for your were strangers in the land of Egypt?” For “stranger” substitute “refugee” or any number of other terms denoting Jewish suffering through the ages.
If you and Israel wish to be obtuse moral blockheads, like hard-hearted Pharoah then be my guest. Most of the rest of us Jews in the world understand that our history of suffering demands that we shelter those in need.
In future, be more careful in your claims and be careful to respond to the precise arguments I’ve made & not to your version of them. Also, take care that your comments are as concise as possible.
Oops. Here is the link.
https://www.mimoona.co.il/Projects/3823&ChangeLang=English
Ordinary Israelis save the children of Syria.
@ Neil: First, it’s not at all clear who is sponsoring this effort, how much it has raised, who the beneficiaries are, or how they are chosen or designated. I don’t know how you define “saving” anyone, let alone a Syrian child. Nor is it clear that the effort “saved” anyone. But most important, this is a private effort having nothing to do with the Israeli government, which is the sole entity able to offer humanitarian aid or physical refuge on a large scale. Finally, there is no indication that this effort is intended to change government policy regarding offering refuge inside Israel to anyone from Syria.
This is a nice hasbara feint on your part. But it doesn’t replace government engagement on the issue.
Meanwhile….
“Netanyahu to be investigated for bribery, fraud” ( http://www.timesofisrael.com/report-netanyahu-to-be-investigated-for-bribery-fraud/ )
Hopefully he is found guilty, stripped of his political office, and either hung from the neck until dead or deported to Russia for a lifetime sentence of forced labor in Siberia.
@ Strelnikov: No problems with most of what you said. But it’s much more likely Bibi and Yvet will retire to a sumptuous dacha next door to their good pal, Vladimir Putin. They’ll also receive a lifetime pension & the Order of Lenin for services-rendered.
Please Richard. If you could change the life of only one child.
http://www.jta.org/2016/12/18/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/israeli-grassroots-initiative-raising-money-for-syrian-refugees
Hasbara has no shame ! There was more than 500.000 Palestinians with refugee status in Syria prior to the present tragedy, did the State of Israel or individual Israeli ‘grass roots organizations’ ever do anything for them (Yarmouk is but one place to start), did they ever do anything about the thousand of crippled children in Gaza due to the last three Israeli agressions, why did the PA have to pay tens of thousands of dollars for Ahmad Dawabsheh’s hospitalization in Israel when he was burnt by Israeli citizens, etc etc
Sorry, Barbar, but your ‘sympathy’ for the Syrians just don’t convince anyone, and I’m sure they don’t wan’t your sympathy either. It’s just like the demonstration for Aleppo in Tel Aviv: the people among the demonstrators who have also demonstrated against their own State’s war crimes, fine, I salute them, but the rest, like Avi Mayer, the chief of Hasbara who had the chutzpah to show up for Aleppo, go to h***.
@ Neil: Bibi Netanyahu can change the lives of tens of thousands of Syrian & African children by recognizing their claims for asylum & refugee status. But he doesn’t. Stop hasbarizing me. It won’t work.
I’m mischlinge, Jewish enough for the gas [my father is Jewish}, but not Jewish enough for the orthodox [my dads breasts were not big enough]’. So, as a human, I gotta say this blog keeps me sane on issues relating to Palestine/Israel. I’m disgusted at the political discourse within Israel for its continual calls for the murder and torture of Palestinians, our Semitic brothers. Is it just me or are the zio’s amongst the worst anti-Semites on the planet for the faeces they tip on “arabs”? Anyway keep up the good work. Palestine and Israel must be freed from the Zionist curse. From another settler state based on genocide and the ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples from the land we occupy. Support BDS.