Name:     Michael L. S.   [E-Mail]
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      Website:  Middle East Resource Center


 

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Heyeh shalom! The EU Council of Ministers held a session yesterday and discussed various things. Among others they touched on the co-operation (or lack of it) with the ICTY of former Yugoslav countries pursuant to an interim report on the matter presented to the Council by the Chief Prosecutor Ms. Del Ponte. Her report was scathing; essentially, not Bosnia, not Serbia and not Croatia are doing a satisfactory job in apprehending and surrendering the suspected war criminals Karadzic, Gotovina and Mladic to the ICTY for trial. Croatia took the news particularly badly because it could affect their hopes of joining the EU in a couple of years' time. Their successive governments have been pussyfooting around the issue of arresting "general" Gotovina for years now. The new administration which assumed power April seemed promising in this regard but they have failed to deliver. Yes, I AM getting to a point here. After the meeting Dennis McShane who is supposed to be something called the European affairs minister in the English government heaped a bevy of threats on the Croats along the lines of: "The European Union is not just about nice words but concrete actions, too" or "Gotovina has to surrender. I offer him my personal guarantee he'll have a TV, shower and lots of spare time at Den Haag." Let's leave aside the grossly condescending latter statement. Let's even leave aside the fact that Britain has murdered far more innocent Iraqi people in their aggression on Iraq than the Croats know how to count... - and no-one will ever answer for it. Let's just take the former comment. That was said by a sconehead; and the sconeheads have done more to destabilize the EU and bring discord into it than the other 24 members put together. HE presumes to sermonize about the spirit and ideals of the EU. I personally think Gotovina is a murderous and cowardly scumbag who should rot in jail for a significant length of time. I also reckon the Croats are (a) being disingenuous about not being able to find him, and (b) not anywhere near ready to join the European Union. But smug utterances like the above on McShane's part (and you should've seen his ugly, arrogant-cum-peremptory mug on TV) almost make me want to wish Gotovina cocks a snook at the Tribunal. Almost... - but not quite.

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OK, and now for the final installment of my most enthralling exchange with Cliff. This is my answer to his note which I quoted in my previous post here. The few parts where he had quoted me are encoded in dark green.

[MS:] Hello Cliff:

[CJ:] I am not very impressed with the Gaza disengagement plan, since it merely means that the Gazans will continue to live in the largest prison (dare I say concentration camp?) in the world.

[MS:] So, what is Israel supposed to do?! It's not good if it occupies Gaza. It's not good if it doesn't occupy Gaza. What a surprise...not. The fence has to stay for now. Like it or not (in my case not), it was built as a RESPONSE, NOT CAUSE (and, I think you'll find it was, objectively, a proportionate response to a stream of homicide bombers emanating from those areas with the mission to seek out the most densely populated areas of Israel and blow them up); the Gazan part has been built along the international border; and it has been 100% effective in stoppoing terrorist attacks. I disagree with the buffer zones between Gaza and Egypt and Gaza and the Mediterranean Sea but surely you realize that they will not be tenable for long and will go very soon after the disengagement. I just bet that if Arik Sharon doesn't hold a referendum on the disengagement plan before putting it in motion, you or someone similar will come up with the idea to cite that as "evidence" of how Israel is undemocratic!


[CJ:] The organisations you name are all Zionist, as you yourself are, presumably. We could have a long discussion over whether Zionism is the same as racism,

[MS:] Not really. All we have to do is compare the definitions of Zionism and racism and see if they match. Or we could compare the manifestations of Zionism and racism in the actuality and again see how they match. Want to do that? And yes, I am a Zionist. But no, I'm not a racist in the slightest. I only recognize the existence of one race and that is the human race.

So, if an organization is--according to your perception--Zionist--again, according to your understanding of Zionism which I am sure is based on months of in-depth study--, then it is suspect and to be dismissed whatever it may stand for, whatever it may advocate and campaign for, whatever ideals it propagates... OK, I'll just refrain from commenting on the absurdity of that.


[CJ:] but I personally can't see the difference. I think we would all be horrified if Germany declared itself officially an "Aryan" state and expelled the majority of ethnic minorities. In fact that is what has already happened. I would like to understand the difference between this and the declaration of Israel as a Jewish state and the expulsion of the majority of ethnic minorities, but the difference escapes me.

[MS:] I think we'll do that comparison after all. Let's start:
(1)
IL: The Jews were given a nation state by the international community--yes, a misnomer at the time as much as it is today--based on the rationale that a nation that's been persecuted without cessation for several millennia should be protected in a way a nation state affords.
DE: The Germans declared an Aryan Germany spontaneously, out of ideological reasons and with the express stated purpose of ridding it of all non-Aryans.

(2)
IL: The moniker "Jewish state" is actually incorrect. Israel's description is "homeland OF JEWS". Even if it were called "the Jewish state", that in absolutely no way, explicitly or implicitly, designates Israel as belonging to, consisting of or catering for only Jews. It's just a really sad way of making a little straw man and clutching onto meaningless semantics--all to smear Israel.
DE: The Nazis said Germany was for Germans and Aryans only, and they put in place a string of measures to ensure that was ultimately and absolutely the case.

(3)
IL: Israel did not expel the "majority of ethnic minorities". Yes, a higher proportion than not of the original Arab population left in the Arab-initiated war of 1948 but active expulsion was only one in a plethora of reasons for their leaving.
DE: Nazi Germany not only expelled the majority (as in ALL) of its ethnic minorities but it systematically exterminated them, too.

(4)
IL: Israel did and does not exclude its ethnic minorities from all but private primary sector of production.
DE: Nazi Germany in its early days prohibited Jews from employment in the private secondary and tertiary, and all public sectors of production... - that's before it shipped all of them off anyway to extermination camps.

(5)
IL: Israel did and does not force its ethnic minorities to wash sidewalks.
DE: Nazi Germany did.

(6)
IL: Israel did not launch an expansionist war but was attacked several times.
DE: Nazi Germany launched such a war without any provocation.

(7)
IL: Israel does not propagate the superiority of Jews or inferiority of non-Jews.
DE: Nazi Germany very actively did (substitute "Germans" for "Jews," of course!).

(8)
IL: Israel did at no time line up hundreds of people along a river, tied them in twos, had a private smite one of the two to the head with a mallet so they'd both fall in the river and the one still alive would then drown.
DE: Nazi Germany specialized in such tactics.

(9)
IL: Israel did not and does not cart off any of its citizens (20% of whom are ethnic minorities) to mass extermination camps--and no, you can NOT draw a parallel between that and ANYTHING else, no matter how much you'd like to. Fact is, Israel never made an effort to systematically exterminate a group of people or cleans any territory from it.
DE: Nazi Germany did.

(10)
IL: Zionism says nothing more and nothing less than: pursuant to centuries of abuse, persecution, pogroms and mass murder of Jews all over Europe and wider, a nation-state should be re-established which will ensure protection of Jews per international legal provisions. Post-Zionism says: that state has been established as the internationally-recognized Medinat Yisra'el (State of Israel), it has been several times defended from aggression and it has to be kept defended. Nothing more, nothing less, Cliff, no matter how much you'd like it to be otherwise.
DE: I think we both know what Nazi ideology stated.


[CJ:] I have had contacts with Israelis in my travels recently, mostly young people travelling in groups and looking for cheap drugs and with no interest in the local culture or in making contact with other travellers. Not that young British people are much different (except that their preferred drug is alcohol!).

[MS:] Right, obviously a very thorough and objective picture of the protagonists in the Middle East saga, then.


[CJ:] I also regularly read Ha'aretz, which is much more open than American and most European newspapers. (Although the number of Arab Israeli employees is zero.)

[MS:] In that case, I presume you have reservations about every organization in the world which does not accurately reflect the ethnic composition of the populace among which it operates, right? Right. (I have contacted HaAretz aksing them to confirm the number of Israeli Arabs employed there.)


[CJ:] Whether Tantura happened or not is really academic, as you say. The general pattern is important. And the motivation. I'm still not sure about Jenin. If the Israelis had nothing to hide, why did they refuse to allow the UN to inspect the camp?

[MS:] You're getting desperate, aren't you? The "eyewitnesses" miraculously melted away. Numerous investigations by international organizations as well as by every anti-Israel piece of scum on this planet only confirmed what Israel had been saying all along. But hey, if you think you know better, you just keep at it. I remember how that dickhead Robert Fisk squirmed when his fortnight-long scare stories and screams of outrage were exposed as a complete sham; he tried to weasel out of his predicament by saying: yeah ok, there was maybe no massacre...but let's wait for UN investigation... let's wait for the HRW investigation...{after that} let's......uh...ah...er...uhm...{wipe sweat off forehead}...erm...oh, but the Israelis destroyed a lot of Palestinian houses! He didn't have the decency and professionalism to apologize or at least admit he was wrong. What a lowlife. And you give him the most prominent place on your website. What do you think that says about your motives?

(While on the subject, you say: "[T]here are [...] a few independent Western (and Israeli) journalists who do not act as public relations officers for the US or Israeli governments [...]". You don't see the irony of that, do you? Did it ever occur to you that these "few" may actually be acting as "public relations officers" for the PA and radical Arab elements instead? You see, you don't try to even give semblance of being objective. Cliff, I'm probably a third of your age and even I have learned by now that objectivity means looking at each item of evidence independently, with an open mind and investigating it thoroughly with reference to as independent elements as possible. Just because a source dissents from a source which lends its support to a cause you dislike, it does not make the former any more independent or trustworthy than the latter--whether it be on the same or different matter/cause.)

Oh, and I forgot last time: remember all the baloney that was doing the rounds just before the Iraq war: that Israel was militating (quite the opposite actually but OK) for the war to go ahead so that while the world's attention was turned to Iraq, it could expel ALL the Palestinians once and for all?


[CJ:] I'm not saying that the Palestininas are angels, or that they never lie, but I think you can agree that the Israeli PR machine works vastly better than the Palestinians'.

[MS:] When the majority of the world media give equal coverage to twelve people murdered in a homicide bombing as to the killing of three Chamas terrorists, then I thoroughly disagree with that statement. That, as well as incidences of international newsagencies pulling incriminating pictures and reports of Palestinian misdeeds, also put to rest claims of our controlling the world media (in addition, of course, to banks, governments, armed forces, the Earth orbit around the Sun, etc.) or unduly influencing them.


[CJ:] I think that there is more criticism of Israel than other countries because it is Israel that claims to be "the only democracy in the Middle East" and to have "the most humane army in the world". It also consistently blames the victims for everything.

[MS:] You DO realize that you just described almost every country in the world, right? Do you know of any country, army or movement that ever responds to any criticism by saying: yes, we are brutal, we are a tyranny, we do breach human rights!?! Let's take a case study: Chechnya. On average 15-20 Chechens are killed by the Russian forces daily (MANY more than the Palestinians). Chechen wormen also get raped on a regular basis which never happens in the territories. Further, Chechens have been under occupation/oppression for almost one and a half centuries (read that again: ALMOST 150 YEARS). And yet, a 14 year old Palestinian getting killed will elicit probably fifty times more reports than 14 Chechens getting killed. Let me ask you something now and please try to answer honestly: do you think the situation in Chechnya would be ignored the way it is by the world ("western", Arab, Muslim, and every other) if by some chance the Russians were Jewish? I think you know the answer to that as well as I. I won't even attempt to compare the attitude to Palestinians with the attitude to people who've had it even worse than the Chechens. EVEN the US (the arch-bogeyman of today) and its pathetic sidekick Britain which launched a thoroughly illegal and unprovoked war, killed far more Iraqis in a year than Israel did Palestinians in four years, still kill far more Iraqis daily than Israel does Palestinians weekly are not assailed on with NEARLY as much ferocity as Israel. And you see, that shows beyond all doubt that 99 out of 100 external pro-Palestinian commentators on the Middle East are not pro-Palestinian at all but rather anti-Israeli. (Equally, more pro-Israel commentators than not are also a bunch of assholes--if you'll pardon my language--and I denounce them also.) As for the "humane army" aspect, well, you tell me: in any recent war you can think of, how many casualties were there per one operation? Just the day before yesterday USAF fired a rocket into a packed Baghdad street to destroy a Bradley so as, ostensibly, to prevent looting; several dozen people died or injured (including an al-Arabiya reporter). A wedding posse - bombed to smithereens in Afghanistan. Are there any "boycott America" campaigns going on, any "apartheid USA" "workshops" organized on college campuses, any "doublestandards.org" websites sprouting?

I'm not saying this because I want to stifle legitimate criticism of Israel. But legitimate criticism is criticism of actions or practice which (a) looks at their overall context, (b) is based on verifiable facts, and (c) is even-handed. Sorry, nothing personal, but to flagellate Israel for alleged (and glaringly unproven) discrimination against Israeli Arabs is as petty, prejudiced and frankly pathetic as it would be if I/we crucified Germany for having today the same national anthem melody as it did during WW2. I bet the next step is to moan about administrative detention in Israel while saying absolutely nothing about eg. Britain which also has it and has had it for a long time while being under much less threat than Israel, AND which is actually tremendously arrogant in its boasting of being a democratic state.

Let me give you an example of constructive criticism: say the IDF goes into a refugee camp, apprehends four terrorists, kills three others and in the process of arresting or killing the fourth it manages to demolish two houses and kill ten Palestinian civilians. Yes, criticize the IDF, Israeli government, even the Israeli electorate as vehemently as you like. It was disproportionate, reckless, possibly even sadistic. But then with equal vehemence say: Palestinian terrorists (yes, terrorists; not militants, not fighters, no bullshit but terrorists) live, sleep and work in refugee camps among civilian population which they use as not even a human shield but a human blanket. The local authorities, for what authority they actually have, have despite repeated requests failed to apprehend these terrorists. Several homicide bombers--who are responsible for dozens of Israeli civilian deaths--came from that refugee camp. The supposedly civilian Palestinians' homes are regularly used to hide the terrorists; the streets serve as assault courses; the rooftops as sniping nests; the schools to store weapons caches. Etc. THAT, Cliff, is objective (though maybe not constructive) criticism and one which people like I will take seriously. Your site is saturated with tales and faux-analyses of Israel's brutality. Have you, however, put a SINGLE item on there concerning wanton terrorist attacks by Qasam rockets on Sderot and other Negev towns? What about quizzes comparing Arabs' statements to Nazis'? Corruption, nepotism and thuggery in the PA? Indoctrination and abuse of children? Blatant breaches of human rights at the hands of the PA? State-sponsored vigilantism in PA territories? No, didn't think so.

Unlike anti-Israelis, I'm not anti-Palestinian as I believe you've caught on by now. I really do sympathize with them and want them (as well as all people in the world) to experience some of what I and people like I have experienced; the joys, opportunities, freedom...of movement, of thought, of education...). I merely refuse to blame for their plight someone who objectively did and largely does not cause it.


[CJ:] I agree with you that the North Africans in France are discriminated against, but there is a BIG difference. The Israeli Arabs can hardly be considered immigrants, since their ancestors have lived in the land for centuries

[MS:] That's immaterial. I was not talking about "immigrants" but about ethnic minorities and their treatment at the hands of the majority. And most Arab-Europeans in France are not immigrants anyway since they were born there. (As for living there for centuries, I'm sure you--who are so well read and informed about all matters ME conflict-wise--are aware that a high number of Palestinians arrived in the Mandate at around the same time as Jews--from Egypt, Syria and Tunisia principally, and also other places.)


[CJ:] (unless you believe the Zionist myth of "a land without people for a people without land")

[MS:] I don't. But it might serve you well to actually research what was meant by that saying and what land it referred to. I know you'd like it to say that Zionist fathers were liars and/or didn't see Arabs as people but it actually says something different and talks about something different. You might also want to see what Mark Twain who--unlike you or me--was actually there a few years before the First Zionist Congress had to say. (Yes, yes, I know about counterclaims to the effect that his reports were skewed by this or that factor but I think you'll find such claims to be rather stretched.)


[CJ:] Comparable situations would be the Australian treatment of the aborigines, or the American treatment of the native Indians, both of which I find appalling.

[MS:] Not quite comparable because Jews had SOME connexion with the land whereas the Europeans had perfectly none. And do you find the treatment so appalling that you have a doublestandards.org site dedicated to them? You have "US foreign policy" and "US economy" sections but nothing about Native Americans; and the "Australia" or "colonialism" sections are missing altogether!


[MS:] Israeli Arabs are far better off than the vast majority of Arabs anywhere in the Arab world.

[CJ:] I love this sentence. It reminds me of the rationalization used by white racists in the southern American states talking about black people.

[MS:] And how many of the "black" people were "CSA" state court judges, army officers, members of congress, cabinet ministers, residents of "white" cities or, for that matter, voters? Equally, how many Israeli Arabs have to use separate entrances, separate washbasins, sit at the back of buses, live in bantustans or are unable to obtain identification/travel documents? 'Nuff said.


[MS:] The JNF owns very little land (about 5%) and yes, prefers Jews. However, 3% of the land is owned by the Arab Wakhf which gives preference to Israeli Arabs. The point is?

[CJ:] The point is that 93% of the land is in the hands of the state or the JNF, and is in practice never leased to Arab Israelis.

[MS:] And what is the source of that information?! Not only can any citizen of Israel lease state-owned land but Israeli Arabs (particularly the Bedouin) are actually entitled to subsidization and other affirmative action-oriented initiatives. Half of land tilled by Israeli Arabs has been leased from the state. Besides, what are you saying: that Israeli Arabs have nowhere to live or nothing to work on?!? Look, Cliff, I know you'd really like things to be a particular way but they're just stubbornly not. It may impugn your "right-wing neocons+MNCs+Israel vs. everyone else" worldview and for that I'm sorry; but perhaps it's time to reexamine what you think are "facts" and "points". May I suggest you read up on the subject of land ownership and distribution in the State of Israel, the laws, court cases, etc. and then we can--if you should so desire--continue talking about this.


[CJ:] It would be nice to think that the quotes in the quiz were from extremists. However they are from such people as Rafel Eitan, IDF Chief of Staff 1978-83, Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel 1977-82 and Chairman Heilbrun of the Committee for the Re-election of General Shlomo Lahat, the mayor of Tel Aviv.

[MS:] And? A lot of translations on MEMRI and PMW come directly from Arafat, al-Asad, Mubarak, high Arab government officials, state media, etc. TODAY... - yet you denounced that as selective, unrepresentative and hence irrelevant. DOUBLE STANDARDS? ;-)


[MS:] Who walked out of negotiations and started the Intifada in stead?

[CJ:] Oh please, not this piece of Zionist propaganda yet again. Please see http://www.doublestandards.org/gorman1.html.

[MS:] Nothing new there plus it misses the point totally. Two people say it wasn't generous; I'll give you two from the negotiating team who say it was. Personally, I don't think it was a great offer but it sure as hell was better than nothing and infinitely better than what's going on now. That's not the point though. The point is that Arafat didn't say something along the lines of: "No, sorry, I don't like that but here, I've a counterproposal" or "Hm, if you give me a couple of days, I'll mull it over and get back to you, one way or another". No, he just rejected it out of hand and went back to his retreat in Ramallah never to be heard from again in this matter. In the intervening months he prepared the "intifada" (according to a PA official and Arafat himself) the trigger for which was Arik Sharon's oh-so provocative visit to the Temple Mount (Judaism's holiest site). That "intifada" has to date claimed about five thousand lives. "Oh please", you say? Yes, indeed.


[MS:] Oh, and while I had the option of DIPLOMACY staring me in the face.

[CJ:] Diplomacy? If your land has been occupied for 37 years and more and more of your land is being stolen then diplomacy is the answer? So the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto should have been diplomatic with the Nazis who were attacking them?

[MS:] Heh, nice try but completely disparate. (1) The Warsaw Jews had never attacked Germans nor had they gotten their compadres in Berlin or Amsterdam to attack Germans. (2) The Warsaw Jews had not stubbornly rejected a fair UN resolution, launched a war against Germans instead, and then moaned ever since they lost that, and four subsequent, wars. (3) After 50 years of continuous war and suffering, the Jews did not walk out of negotiations which were about to give them almost all they ever STATED they wanted, and then start a bloody "intifada" after a German pensioner stepped on a "holy" rock.

[Just as an afterthought vis-a-vis the last sentence up there, I came across an interesting thought in HaAretz the other day. It read: "There is no tomb, synagogue, mosque or church that is more sacred than a kindergarten resounding with the joyful shouts of children. The tombs of prophets and Jewish saints in Iraq lost none of their holiness when the Jews relinquished stones in favor of life." Now apply in to the last sentence of the preceding paragraph.]

And these are just perfunctory comparisons, ie. this is not comparing the situation feature-by-feature which would be even more damning vis-a-vis the Palestinian leadership... - or lack of it. Furthermore, I would VERY well be pursuing diplomacy after seeing that Israel was once prepared to give up territory thrice its size, replete with oil reserves and settlements in exchange for final peace. You see, put it any way you like, but Israel neither caused nor perpetuates this conflict. I agree it should make the first move but what happens when "the other side" doesn't respond? You don't like unilateral disengagement, so what then?


[CJ:] Last but not least, I'm not condoning killing civilians, all I'm saying is that the line between civilians and military is not always clear. Take the settlers for example, many of whom are extremists from Brooklyn living out a fantasy of being in the Wild West surrounded by "wild Indians", and are heavily armed.

[MS:] Yes, and my solution for them would be to withdraw the IDF and let them fend for themselves. Most of them are thoroughly repugnant individuals whom you'd be far pressed to distinguish from the KKK. I think they are legitimate targets although even more legitimate ones abound. Schoolgirls on buses in Jerusalem, teenagers in pizzerias in Tel Aviv, pensioners in hotels in Netanya, mothers in kitchens cooking lunch, babies in buggies in parks, etc. are not legitimate targets in any circumstances. No ifs, no buts.

Best wishes,

Michael

Well, that's it, folks! I'll offer some more insight into things next time as I've a splitting headache.

Kol tuv!

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