Academic
antisemitism
Boycott
discussion:
Dispute with Steven Rose
Some European academics have called for a cultural
and scientific boycott of Israel. One of the boycott petitions, calling for a
MORATORIUM on scientific contacts with the Jewish state, was instigated by Dr. Steven Rose and published in
The
Guardian. Its full text can be found at
http://euroisrael.huji.ac.il/original.html. I sent a letter condemning
this moratorium to all signatories of that petition whose email addresses were
included in the
list published on the same website, and received
similarly sounding replies from
Drs. Rose and Blakemore, another member of the boycott team. I have
decided to publish my exchange
with Dr. Rose because it clarifies the opposing views and their origins.
It follows below in chronological order.
MV:
"The times have
made it unpopular, in the West, to proclaim openly a hatred of the
Jews. This being the case, the anti-Semite must constantly seek new
forms and forums for his poison. How he must revel in the new
masquerade! He does not hate the Jews, he is just 'anti-Zionist'!" -
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Discovering a
European-supported petition for a boycott of academic ties with Israel to
promote �many peace plans� (http://euroisrael.huji.ac.il/original.html),
I could not help but remember the Western �peaceniks� of the 1970-80�s who
demanded of their governments to stop arming against the threat of communism.
When a delegation of these leftists came for a visit to the Soviet Union (my
country of origin) during the notorious period of �d�tente,� to embrace those
they wanted to live in peace with, they were arrested and deported after an
attempt to organize a pro-peace demonstration in Moscow. That must have been a
good lesson in the effects of moral equivalence. Just as peace movement in the
West was helpful only to the Soviets and supported by the KGB, today�s
peaceniks are helping terrorists to achieve their strategic goals. Forcing
Israel to stop its fight against terrorism�with no guaranty of the end of
terror�would again serve only the terrorist aggressor.
Why is the
anti-Israeli sentiment so popular in Europe? Of course, European
politicians pressing President Bush to restrain Israel
may be taking into account that their electorate is much more Muslim than
Jewish. They would not do it, however, if the rest of the voting population
did not support their pro-Arab stance, and it is not politicians who write
boycott petitions and come to Israel now to defend �Palestinian rights.� Why
Europe, which has tried and failed to appease Hitler by betraying
Czechoslovakia and largely helped him to annihilate European Jewry, makes the
same mistake by trying now to appease the horrific Islamic regimes and
terrorist gangs supported by them? It is hard to imagine that Europe
can still think that appeasing a murderer can
earn protection from him. There is another likely reason for this irrational
behavior�an irrational reason. Some Europeans, including, regrettably,
intellectuals, have finally found a way to both legitimize their deep-seated
antisemitism and exculpate themselves�by wrapping antisemitism in the
comme il faut cloth of their �fight for the rights of Palestinians.�
It
comes clear from the text of the petition. Its authors call �odd� the
situation when Israel is treated as a European state in respect to scientific
funding and contracts while no other state in the region is so regarded. Which
other states there would the petitioners consider eligible for such
treatment�whether from the scientific achievement or accountability
viewpoints? This parenthetically introduced rationale for the moratorium on
all support of science in Israel
is telling because it clearly has nothing to do with its purported
causes. Obviously, such moratorium would cover scientists regardless of their
political convictions and, as such, is a collective punishment
solely based on nationality. Taking into account the international character
of science, it would also cover those who collaborate with Israeli scientists
and depend on results obtained in that research.
One wonders how would the
moratorium treat Israeli scientists who temporarily or permanently work
outside of Israel,
non-Israeli scientists who collaborate with Israelis, or those scientists who
openly support Israel? The proposed moratorium clearly smacks of the �Jewish
science� label used first by the Nazis and then by Stalin�s inquisitors. Since
science benefits all humans, the moratorium, while gaining no political reward
for Palestinian Arabs, has nothing to do with humanitarian causes allegedly
supported by its drafters and has much to do with Jew-baiting.
This is
why these humanitarians do not care that those they call �Palestinians� are in
their majority brain-washed descendants of recent in-migrants to the Land of
Israel, who came from surrounding Arab countries in the end of XIX-XX century
on the heels of Jewish repatriation that transformed the millennia-long
desolation of Palestine and created jobs for Arabs. These human rights
activists call Jews living in Hebron �settlers� and cite Arab majority as the
reason for calling the lands �Arab,� whereas the reason for that majority is
that Jews who lived in those lands were subjected to pogroms instigated by
Arafat�s uncle and a personal friend of Hitler�s
Amin al-Husseini,
mass-murdered, evicted, and kept from entering Palestine by the British (just
before and at the time of the greatest genocide in history). These European
peace-lovers know and are comfortable with the knowledge that the only peace
satisfactory for Arafat and the Arab world is where Jews do not fight because
there is no more Israel and they are dead�the same way the fathers and
grandfathers of these Europeans were undisturbed by the trains leaving their
cities for Treblinka.
________________________________
Steven Rose replies:
From: < S.P.R.Rose@open.ac.uk <mailto:S.P.R.Rose@open.ac.uk>
>
To: < mmv@pitt.edu <mailto:mmv@pitt.edu> >
Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2002 10:36 AM
Subject: boycotts etc
If you cant tell the difference between being
opposed to illegal occupations, collective punishments and the
systematic destruction of a people by a State and anti-semitism you are
in pretty poor intellectual shape.
And you should get your history straight. The zionist
household in which I was born and reared was clear that Chaim Weizmann
was correct to demand the colonisation of Palestine by Jews as 'a land without
people for a people without land.'
Steven Rose
Joint Gresham Professor of Physic,
Visiting Professor, Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology
University College London,
and
Director, Brain and Behaviour Research Group and Professor of Biology
The Open University
Milton Keynes MK7 6 AA
UK
telephone +44 (0) 1908 652125
fax +44 (0) 1908 654167
email s.p.r.rose@open.ac.uk <mailto:s.p.r.rose@open.ac.uk>
__________________________
MV replies:
Dear Dr.
Rose:
Thank you very much for your prompt response to my
letter. I regret, however, that instead of addressing its substance, you
employ a classic straw man argument (let alone an ad hominem one). I
object not to your protest against "illegal occupations, collective
punishments," etc.--you are entitled to your views, of course. What I do
consider antisemitic is boycotting Israeli scientists BASED ON THEIR
NATIONALITY. I am sure that you are capable of seeing that this is a
COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT--why then are you trying to impose it? And how exactly
would you mete it? My colleague in Israel, for instance, has Palestinian Arab
researchers in his team, funded by a European grant--would you exempt him, or
them, or no mercy?
I am not sure that it serves your argument well when you
support your opinion about a political movement by one slogan taken out of
context. Would you apply at least the same standard to the Palestinian
nationalist movement whose slogans regarding Jews have been the same as its
great supporter's, Hitler, as you, with your knowledge of history, surely
know? I also hope you have been as vocal protesting the illegal occupation of
the disputed territories by JORDAN until 1967 as well as the truly monstrous
acts of Arab and Islamic governments in their treatment of women, minorities,
and dissenters (including your colleagues-scientists).
I envy you that you have had an opportunity to be raised
in a Zionist household. In the country where I was born and reared Zionism
used to be a capital crime, teaching Hebrew entailed years in the GULag, and
attending services in a synagogue made you liable to be expelled from a school
and blacklisted. The Politburo fully shared your views on Zionism and Israel
and would wholeheartedly support your petition. I doubt, however, you would
feel more comfortable there than in your "zionist household."
I was glad to receive in response to my letter from one
of my correspondents a reply to your petition by EU Commissioner for Research
Philippe Busquin (please see
attached). He, in his diplomatic but sufficiently scalding way, pointed
out some of its major flaws - the same as I did.
Please allow me to conclude with another quote from Dr.
Martin Luther King: "My friend, I do not accuse you of deliberate
anti-Semitism. I know you feel, as I do, a deep love of truth and justice and
a revulsion for racism, prejudice, and discrimination. But I know you have
been misled--as others have been--into thinking you can be 'anti-Zionist' and
yet remain true to these heartfelt principles that you and I share. Let my
words echo in the depths of your soul: When people criticize Zionism, they
mean Jews--make no mistake about it."
_____________________________________
SR replies:
From: <S.P.R.Rose@open.ac.uk>
To: <mmv@pitt.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2002 3:47 PM
Subject: RE: boycotts etc
the boycott call is not against individual Israelis but
against institutional links. And with respect to the question concerning
palestinian researchers, we have had strong messages of support for the call
from palestinians as you might imagine. The ONLY people who have objected on
the grounds of harming Israeli-Palestinian collaboration are Israelis. Draw
your own conclusions.
_______________________________________
MV replies:
I am not Israeli. Nor are Philippe Busquin, the EU
Commissioner for Research (please read his response I attached to my previous
message) and my American colleagues. Draw yours.
Your "not against individual Israelis but against institutional links"
does
not make any difference to me, especially considering that you seem to
disregard the objections of "ONLY" individual Israelis (by the way, what
conclusions would you suggest I should make?). Don't you think you should pay
more attention to Israelis who want to collaborate with their Palestinian
colleagues? Or you think that it is Israelis who mainly benefit from that
collaboration--and who cares about Israelis?
I may
be expecting too much, but you again did not respond to my message, choosing
instead to respond to one example I gave.
There have been no more replies from
Dr. Rose.
Fortunately, the number of scientists
who have protested anti-Israel boycotts and supported Israel is much greater than
that of antisemitic and misguided scientific allies of Arafat. The updates can be found
at
http://euroisrael.huji.ac.il/news.html. Contrary to Rose's
wishful thinking that "ONLY" Israeli scientists protest his boycott initiative
and thus are isolated, the anti-boycott support comes from numerous countries,
including Rose's own Great Britain, whose leading science journal, Nature,
has published a strongly worded
objection to any such boycott,
and the National Union of Students
condemned it.
July 12, 2002. -
Meanwhile, I have not waited too long to get an answer to my question
above,
how the
moratorium would treat Israeli scientists working outside of Israel: a British
professor of Egyptian origin, one of the signatories of Rose's petition, has just
fired her Israeli colleagues from the editorial boards of the two
journals she owns (?) - for no other reason than their
nationality (and she is not unique - June 28, 2003). She did that in accordance with her "interpretation
of what a boycott of Israel means." Like Rose,
"[she
is] not actually boycotting Israelis, [she is] boycotting Israeli
institutions."
To emphasize the collective punishment character of her
action, one of
the Israelis is a former chairman of Amnesty International's Israeli
branch and has criticized Israel's "policies
in the West Bank and Gaza Strip." Is Dr. Rose going to protest such a
wrong interpretation of his fight (he
himself kindly promises to continue "to collaborate with, and host,
Israeli scientific colleagues on an individual basis") on the side of Hamas and Hezbollah? I
would not hold my breath.
July 23, 2002. -
...And I shouldn't have. See the Roses'
new, verbose and lame attempt to justify their despicable action.
I have written the following to
letters@guardian.co.uk [needless to say, as of August 9, it has
not been published].
To Editor:
On July 15, your newspaper published another
letter from Drs. Steven and Hilary Rose, in which they attempted to
justify their call for anti-Israel boycotts, including the unprecedented
boycott of Israeli science. Not only this new letter, replete with
non-sequiturs, does not contain anything new and gives no response to the
numerous critiques of their boycott call (including those published in The
Guardian), but it also contains striking examples of the authors'
intellectual dishonesty uncommon among scientists of the Roses' caliber.
In particular, they finish their letter with
a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which has nothing to do with the
topic of the letter. Being the last sentence, however, it creates an
impression that Dr. King's views on the topic are somehow positively
associated with the Roses' position. Dr. King did indeed express his views
on Zionism and Israel, but they were exactly opposite to the Roses'. In
his words, "The times have made it unpopular, in the West, to proclaim
openly a hatred of the Jews. This being the case, the anti-Semite must
constantly seek new forms and forums for his poison. How he must revel in
the new masquerade! He does not hate the Jews, he is just
'anti-Zionist'!... My friend, I do not accuse you of deliberate
anti-Semitism. I know you feel, as I do, a deep love of truth and justice
and a revulsion for racism, prejudice, and discrimination. But I know you
have been misled - as others have been - into thinking you can be
'anti-Zionist' and yet remain true to these heartfelt principles that you
and I share. Let my words echo in the depths of your soul: When people
criticize Zionism, they mean Jews - make no mistake about it."
Drs. Rose object to "collective punishments"
by the Israeli government, which is trying to protect its citizens from
the terror that, in proportional terms, no other country has ever
experienced and which is the terrorists' reaction not to that government's
actions but to the very existence of Israel (Hamas, Hezbollah, and Jihad
Islami do not recognize Israel's right to exist). The Roses do not find,
however, anything wrong with their own call for the COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT
- of Israeli scientists, including those (as the recent example with the
two Israeli professors has shown) who object against their government's
policies. Even if they somehow had failed to see that obvious flaw in
their boycott call, I communicated it to them before their last letter was
published (the communication also included the above quotes from Dr.
King). That failure is, therefore, another example of their intellectual
dishonesty.
July 31, 2002. -
Hamas supported today the Roses' boycott of Israeli academic institutions
- by its murderous bombing of Hebrew University. Seven killed, 86 wounded.
Out of 23,000 students of this school, 5,000 are Arabs, but, like the
Roses, Hamas does not care about that as long as the Jews are harmed.
"Hamas said the attack marks a change in strategy. It will now use bombs
instead of suicide bombers following Israeli punishments against the
families of suicide bombers by demolishing their homes and exiling them to
Gaza" (Jerusalem Post, August 1, 2002).
August 8, 2002. -
Dr. Rose keeps trying to prove how much he hates the Jewish state and has
nothing to do with it and his "zionist household." Today's issue of The
Guardian (this newspaper seems to have no other newsworthy items than
anti-Jewish actions of antisemitic Jews)
reported of another act of intellectual terrorism against Israel by
Rose and his marginal accomplices. This time these British "writers,
academics and artists," just a week after the Hebrew University mass
murder, find nothing more pressing than "to renounce their right to
Israeli residence and citizenship in protest at Israel's 'barbaric'
policies towards the Palestinians." As if the families of the recent
victims of "Palestinians" in Israel could not wait to embrace these
collaborationists of Hamas at the Ben Gurion airport.
I remember only one similar
renunciation of the right of return to Israel - by the members of the
Soviet "Anti-Zionist Committee." This was done under the KGB's pressure,
as all other activities of that committee formed by the Soviet Gestapo to
project to the world the "Soviet Jews don't need Israel" image.
Regrettably, the British left are conditioned in antisemitism so well that
they do not need any such pressure.
One point in The Guardian's report,
however, can be viewed as a sign of movement in the right direction and
instills hope. The report's author, Steven Morris, correctly calls the territories
"disputed," instead of commonly and wrongly used "occupied." I
sincerely hope Mr. Morris does not get punished for his deviation from
The Guardian's party line.
Andrew Wilkie's "huge problem"
"It must have been June 1996 when the
telephone rang. It was David Shapiro, at that time the Executive Secretary
of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics." This is a quote from an online
article by Andrew Wilkie (awilkie@worf.molbiol.ox.ac.uk),
an Oxford professor and a world-renowned expert in the molecular genetics
of skeletal malformations. Continues Dr. Wilkie, "Would I like to join
a working party to examine the ethical issues raised by genetic research
into mental disorders?... David reassured me that it would not be onerous.
Having slept on it, I agreed to join."
As it has just become clear, not only ethical
issues were not onerous for Dr. Wilkie, David Shapiro successfully passed
another test of Dr. Wilkie's: he was not an Israeli. Other people were not
as lucky. To wit, Dr. Wilkie has recently received an application from a PhD
candidate for working in his lab. The candidate was an
Israeli. Below is Dr. Wilkie's response, laconic but rich in content, as
befits a true intellectual. The esteemed professor succeeds in expressing
his righteous anger regarding how the Israelis exploit their "treatment"
in the Holocaust to grossly abuse "the Palestinians'" rights just because
these victims of abuse want to live in their own country. He does not
enter into any unpleasant detail as to what abuses and what exactly
country are meant, or how he knows what they wish. He keeps his
style in further communication.
-------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Wilkie" <awilkie@worf.molbiol.ox.ac.uk>
To: "Amit Duvshani" <duvshani@post.tau.ac.il>
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2003 9:58 AM
Subject: Re: PhD application
Dear Amit Duvshani,
Thank you for contacting me, but I don't think this would work. I have a
huge problem with the way that the Israelis take the moral high ground
from
their appalling treatment in the Holocaust, and then inflict gross human
rights abuses on the Palestinians because the (the Palestinians) wish to
live in their own country.
I am sure that you are perfectly nice at a personal level, but no way
would
I take on somebody who had served in the Israeli army. As you may be
aware,
I am not the only UK scientist with these views but I'm sure you will find
another suitable lab if you look around.
Yours sincerely
Andrew Wilkie
_______________________________
Like other people who received this incredible
information about UK scientists, I wanted to verify it and clarify Dr.
Wilkie's position. The below exchange followed.
MV:
Dr. Wilkie:
I have been forwarded an email indicating that you refused to accept an
Israeli candidate for a PhD program because he had served in the Israeli
army. This basis for your refusal, if true, would render virtually all
Israeli citizens ineligible for your collaboration with them, as military
service is mandatory in Israel. I'd greatly appreciate your letting me
know
if this information is accurate, and, if so, whether there are any other
countries you exclude from your scientific contacts.
_____________________
Dr. Wilkie replies:
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2003 4:45 PM
Subject: Re: international collaboration
Please find attached my unreserved apology
for what I have done. I was wrong.
Please feel free to circulate this letter.
Yours sincerely
Andrew Wilkie
__________
The text of the letter
(Oxford University press-release):
27 June 2003
Comments by Professor Andrew
Wilkie
A spokesperson for the
University of Oxford said:
"Our staff may hold
strongly felt personal opinions. Freedom of expression is a fundamental
tenet of University life, but under no circumstances are we prepared to
accept or condone conduct that appears to, or does, discriminate against
anyone on grounds of ethnicity or nationality, whether directly or
indirectly. This candidate is entitled to submit an application and to
have it dealt with fairly according to our normal criteria.
"Professor Wilkie has
issued a personal apology regarding remarks he made by e mail to an
applicant for a research degree at Oxford. An immediate and thorough
investigation of this matter is now being carried out in accordance with
the University�s procedures and a report will be presented to the
Vice-Chancellor next week."
Note to editors:
The full text of Professor
Wilkie�s apology is:
"I recognise and apologise
for any distress caused by my e mail of 23 June and the wholly
inappropriate expression of my personal opinions in that document. I was
not speaking on behalf of Oxford University or any of its constituent
parts. I entirely accept the University of Oxford�s Equal Opportunities
and Race Equality policies."
________________________
MV replies:
Dr. Wilkie,
I'd greatly appreciate receiving your response to the questions in my
previous message. As for your apology, it does not appear to be
satisfactory, since it is for the "inappropriate expression" of your
personal opinions, not for the opinions you expressed. Which is probably
honest if you do hold them, but then your stated acceptance of Oxford's
anti-discrimination policies is not. Your apology leaves an impression
that,
given an opportunity, you'd find a more appropriate expression of the same
opinions.
__________________
Dr Wilkie replies:
To: "Michael Vanyukov"
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2003 8:55 PM
Subject: Re: international collaboration
As I said before, my actions were wrong and
I apologise.
Andrew Wilkie
___________________________________
In my opinion, this
repeated apology indicates that Dr. Wilkie regrets his sincerity rather
than his discrimination of Israelis based on their nationality. It is for
Oxford University to decide whether he is compliant with its policies,
which go against abhorrent "personal opinions" held by the University's
faculty and, as Dr. Wilkie intimated, by other UK scientists. I could not
find the anonymous press-release
anywhere on the
University of Oxford home page.
June 28, 2003
________________________________
June 29, 2003. The
press-release has just
appeared there, dated June 27, under a nondescript title, "Comments by
Professor Andrew Wilkie." In addition, Ha'aretz published this
story
today.
July 2, 2003. The
story made its way to
The NY Times today.
The
Palestinian misnomer
The words �Palestine� and �Palestinians� have
become household terms referring to the Arab population of Judea and
Samaria (the West Bank) and the Gaza Strip. This meaning is planned to be
codified in the name of the possible future Arab state discussed between
the PLO and Israel. The adoption of this terminology as official,
however, would be a mistake contradicting history and perpetuating
dangerous falsehoods. This argument is based upon well-known facts that
have long been textbook material.
The term �Palestine� was introduced by the
Romans in the 2nd century CE in their attempt to eradicate all traces of
the Jewish existence in Eretz Israel, the Land of Israel. The name was
derived from the Hebrew name of
Philistines (plishtim), long since
defeated and extinct enemies of the Jews, who 3200 years ago occupied a
small piece of land between Tel Aviv and Gaza. �Palestine� (Syria
Palaestina) was to replace the name �Judaea,� after the last Judean
war where the Roman troops, vastly superior in number and weapons, had
been repeatedly defeated until all the resources of the Jews were
exhausted. The name of Jerusalem was to be replaced by �Aelia Capitolina,�
which, fortunately, has never become part of common language. The term
�Palestine,� whose official use ceased after Romans, would, however, be
revived to designate the area
mandated to Great Britain by the League of
Nations as a consequence of the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Mandatory
Palestine included the territory both to the east and to the west of the
Jordan River�contemporary Jordan (formerly Transjordan) and Israel. The
British were charged with �placing the country under such political,
administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment
of the Jewish national home.�
After the British had decided to create the
emirate of Transjordan�the Arab state in Palestine �across the
Jordan river,� �they reneged on the promise to the Jews that was
contained in the original mandate where �recognition has thereby been
given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine
and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.�
In September 1922, merely two months after
that text was confirmed by the League of Nations, the British used the
clause of the mandate that allowed them, �[i]n the territories lying
between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately
determined,� to �postpone or withhold application of such
provisions of this mandate as he may consider inapplicable to the
existing local conditions,� and made the area to the east of the
Jordan (three quarters of mandatory Palestine) off-limits to Jewish
immigration. In the years that followed, up to the very establishment of
the state of Israel, they also restricted Jewish immigration to western
Palestine and made it virtually impossible by World War II.
Thus, according to the definitions in
existence, be it the Roman one or the pre- and post-Transjordan ones, the
territory described by the term �Palestine� includes either Israel, or
both Israel and Jordan. Therefore, calling the future possible Arab state
�Palestine� would imply either a nonexistent definition of the term or
that the state of �Palestine� has not yet reached its actual borders,
incorporating at least Israel (click
here to see the official confirmation) or both Israel and Jordan. The latter
interpretation is more likely, because the Palestine Liberation
Organization, under the putative head of the future state, Arafat, has
attempted to �liberate� both Israel and Jordan. This
interpretation is also consistent with the Palestinian National Charter
(1968), Article 2, which states that �Palestine, with the boundaries
it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.�
Also likely, he will make another �liberation� attempt, if, and when,
the second Arab state in Palestine is established�contrary to
history, logic, and justice. Similarly, �Palestinians� as the term to use
for the future citizens of this state is a misnomer with equally wrong
implications. Moreover, this term has been used to denote Jews
living in Palestine as opposed to those living in the diaspora. Arabs
started applying this term to themselves only after the establishment of
Israel, when their stated goal became, as it had been for Romans, the
elimination of Jews from �Filastyn� (the Arabic version of the word).
People to whom it is applied are those who
left the newborn state of
Israel. Some of them followed their leaders� calls to leave and promises
that they would get everything after the Jews are drowned in the sea. Some feared that victorious Jews would do to them what they, guided by people
like the Jerusalem mufti
Amin al-Husseini, a personal friend of Hitler�s
and Arafat�s predecessor in the role of the "leader of the Palestinian
people," intended to do to Jews. They are still kept in the
limbo of "refugee camps" by their Arab brethren as pawns in their leaders�
cruel game,
breeding hatred and terror
[more]. There, of course, would be no refugees�and what is now
wrongly termed �Palestinians��if the Arab armies did not attack Israel in
1948 and lose. Nor there would be any refugees if the numerous Arab
states absorbed them, as Israel did with no less the number of Jewish
refugees from Arab countries�with no compensation from the latter.
As John Stewart Mill noted, �the tendency has
always been strong that whatever received a name must be an entity or
being, having an independent existence of its own.� The use of the
term �Palestinians� to denote Arabs is either a misleading abbreviation
for �Palestinian Arabs� (which would then include the Arabs of Israel and
Jordan), or an attempt to reify a nonexistent entity.
March 2001
Note: useful historical information
on the Palestine and related issues can be found on the Web, e.g.,
http://www.palestinefacts.org,
and
http://jewishinternetassociation.org.
9-11: Tears
or fury?
One of
the reasons why the New York mayor Rudy Jiuliani has become �America�s
mayor� in the aftermath of 9-11 is his unsentimental, business-like
approach to the critical situation. People do like that approach by their
leaders under extreme conditions, when they need reliable guidance and hope for success in coping with disasters. Albeit the
emotions of grief, desperation and fear are human and expected under such
conditions, the leaders may not be governed by them because this will be
translated into their government of the people. The opposite emotions,
however,� like Jiuliani�s cold fury, with which he returned the $10 million
check to a Saudi prince who dared to make an impertinent remark regarding
American actions�are not only welcome, but desirable as they are
associated with strength and self-confidence.
This is
why it seems that the approach generally undertaken by the American
administration leaves much to be desired. On this day, a year after the
fanatic Muslim�predominantly Saudi�attack on the American soil, it seems
that the affect expressed by the administration as well as the
American media has largely been that of teary frustration and pain, not unlike the �why
me?� feelings experienced and expressed by anybody in grief. There has
been little anger, let alone fury, in words or facial expressions of the
nation�s leadership; instead, there is a lot of solemnity, quivering lips,
and�especially initially�calls for reconciliation with Islam that was
translated by the President as �peace� instead of �submission.� The mighty
thunder of the only great power left on Earth, which all terrorists in the
world�from Arafat who donated his poisonous blood to injured Americans, to Saudi financiers of
terror�braced themselves for, has never come. The mosques, planted in the
US and everywhere in the world by the Saudis to teach hatred in
preparation for the whole world to become Dar-ul-Islam, the �abode of
Islam,� are still churning out brain-washed fanatics ready to die while
killing unnumbered �kaffirs� regardless of their age and sex. Arafat has just
recently become undesired in the administration�s eyes, but still remains
the �leader of the Palestinian people� instead of being recategorized into
the oldest living terror chieftain. The �Palestinian� state is still
discussed as a desirable goal, while the majority of its potential
citizens
support continued murder of innocent Israelis. The administration
is still trying to convince Arabs that they should support an attack
against Iraq, while even its European continental allies, faithful to
their familiar tactic of appeasing the murderer, deny their support. And
American airlines, ready to risk passengers� lives in fear of offending
�Middle Eastern� guests, waste the effort of their security personnel,
incompetent as it is, on checking the underwear of grandmothers in
wheelchairs for explosive nail clippers they could hide there.
The
somber mood dominating this day needs to be changed into cold
determination guided by moral clarity. While we are flying flags and erecting
memorials, the terror-supporting regimes of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran,
Syria and Lebanon need to be treated in accordance with what used to be
called the Bush doctrine, but is hardly ever repeated anymore: �[e]very
nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with
us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that
continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United
States as a hostile regime.� Without such regimes� support, terror will
crumble. The barbaric and corrupt governments of these countries with their horrible
ideology will likely also crumble to open these countries to the civilized world. Like it was with
communism, which had been considered unshakeable by its US experts, and
with Afghanistan freed from the Taliban, the whole world will benefit from
that. I remember the song that inspired the people in what was then the
Soviet Union in their fight against Hitler�s hordes: �Rise, the giant
country, rise for the mortal fight!.. Let the noble fury rage��
September 11, 2002
Peace-mongering as disease treatment
To successfully treat a disease, one needs to know its
etiology, its causes. Palliatives like treating symptoms sometimes help,
but assuming wrong causes is dangerous and, if the disease is
life-threatening, potentially lethal. Diseases of humanity such as
international conflicts require even more exact knowledge and are even
less tolerant to mistakes as they are potentially lethal to enormous
masses of people, if not to humankind in its totality. Fortunately, in
contrast to the frequently intractable etiologies of human diseases and
confusion between causes and effects, the causes of international
conflicts, however complex, often need only an unbiased list of historical
facts to be revealed and differentiated from their effects.
It is thus very sad to listen to professional peace-mongers
like former senator Mitchell, who, interviewed on Fox News, insists,
neglecting textbook truths, that the problem of the
Middle East is not Saddam but the �Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.� The conflict implied is between
Arabs who currently live under Israeli �occupation� in Judea,
Samaria and Gaza, and, supposedly, only wish to create an ethnically
cleansed, Judenrein, state in those territories, and evil Israelis who do
not allow that. Never mind the fact that there were neither Palestinians
who wanted a state of their own in the �occupied territories� nor the
�occupied territories� themselves until 1967. That is, the territories in
question, Judea, Samaria and Gaza, had been then illegally occupied as a
result of a war of aggression, but by Jordan (which renamed Judea and
Samaria the West Bank), and Egypt.
Israel holds these
territories since 1967, having captured them in a defensive war, which
makes these territories disputed rather than �occupied� (see in-depth
analysis by
Dore Gold.) The Palestine
Liberation Organization was created in 1965�before any Israeli
�occupation.� The goal of the PLO was, and still is�its ruling
Charter has never
been rewritten,� �liberation� of the whole territory that used to be
Mandatory Palestine, which includes Israel and Jordan
(see Article 2 of the Charter).
Saddam is not the whole universe of the causes of ongoing
tragedies in that part of the world. Would not it be parsimonious,
however, to suppose that if any conflict in that area involving
Israel had existed
before 1967, the conflict that immediately followed 1967, involving the
same sides, would be the same? Namely, isn�t it clear that, be it not for
the Arab states� refusal to have Israel, the Jewish state, in their midst,
there would be no 1948-49 war, no Palestinian refugees, no Six-Day War, no
�occupied territories,� and�most likely�no �Palestinian� nation? There
would be no �Jewish settlers,� just as there are none in Eastern Palestine
currently called Jordan�as per a fascist, racist clause in that �moderate�
Arab state�s constitution which allows no Jew to become a citizen. (Arab
settlers in Israel are Israeli citizens represented in the Knesset). No UN
resolution, however, was ever proposed to equalize Islam(ism) with racism,
and no outcry has been heard regarding the rights of religious minorities
in Saudi Arabia. "Voices of moderation" invariably call for territorial losses for
Israel,
hardly ever asking of Arabs anything more than words (whose meaning
radically changes when spoken in Arabic). There is, however, no logically
sound explanation why Israel, or anybody calling himself Israel's ally,
would be willing to create another Arab state, side by side with Israel.
States are not created just because a compact group of a certain ethnicity
happens to reside in a certain territory.
Israel has absorbed a population of Jewish refugees from Arab countries
that is about equal to that of the so-called �Palestinian refugees� and
immensely larger per capita of
Israel�s
population. There is no sound reason why Palestinian Arabs should not be
accepted as citizens by the surrounding twenty-one Arab states, from whose
citizens they do not differ in any meaningful respect and from where their
majority originally came. There is no other reason why the Palestinian refugee population has not been absorbed by these countries
but their decision to cultivate its hatred for
Israel,
whose right to exist they have never accepted. Conceivably, Israel as a
democratic multinational state could have them as her citizens, and, in
fact, extended this offer to Arabs when she was created, but to have now a
huge mass of people who have sworn hatred of Israel join her population
would be suicidal. Needless to say, hating the Zionist state so much,
their only motivation in joining it would be their hope to destroy it.
Israel must insist on being Jewish state because Arab irredentism
continues unabated and is built in the Islamic ideology. There is also no sound reason why Israel's ancient capital�the capital of
the existing state�should be turned over to any newly created state to
become its capital, and the Arab demand for this indicates no goodwill
either.
Isn�t it thus clear that there is no �Israeli-Palestinian�
conflict, nor is there even an Arab-Israeli conflict, but there is instead
a continued and unremitting morbid hatred of the Arab and Muslim states
toward Israel, predating even the creation of that state? Isn�t it
therefore clear that an attempt to treat this disease by giving in,
forcing Israel to give up any territory in response to nothing but
continued terror, creating another hatred-based and hatred-fomenting Arab
state, led by the PLO, a clique of life-long professional terrorists, is
not going to cure it but rather would expand the lesion? Unless, that is,
this will finally be the end of the Jewish state, which has always been
the goal of the Palestinian Liberation Organization�after all, this is
what �liberation� meant and still means in that name. Isn�t it also clear
that Bush�s offering Arabs �a vision of two states, Israel and Palestine,
living side by side in peace and security� in the same speech
that reports on the progress in the war against a source of terror is not
only a non-sequitur, but a misguided attempt to reward another source of
terror, the PLO, and punish its enemy, Israel? It is possible that a state
leader�s policy can be sometimes guided by visions, but those visions must
have firm foundations in reality, otherwise they are mirages. President
Bush�s vision of peace and security is a mirage, even if only because the
overwhelming majority of the future citizens of �Palestine�
support suicide terror against Israel. They also, not surprisingly,
support the President�s own enemies, Saddam and Osama, who they call
�beloved.�
Saddam is not the universe of causes of the
Middle East tragedies.
Moreover, he is rather an effect, an eruption of the same pathological
process that manifests in the �Arab-Israeli� conflict, in the creation of
other megalomaniacal dictators like Qaddafi, Nasser, and the Assads, or
fascist kingdoms like Saudi Arabia, and in the backwardness, endless
bloody civil and interstate wars, and terror as one of the main domestic
and exported products of the Arab world. It is no accident that a mass
murderer like Osama is worshiped in that world, and �The Protocols of the
Elders of Zion,� a forgery that was loved by Hitler, is a #1 bestseller in
the Arab countries. It is also no accident that a movie based on this book
is produced and shown on the main Islamic holiday, prime-time, on the
state-owned TV, in
Egypt,
the most moderate
Arab state
(judging by its �diplomatic� relations with Israel, which are paid for
annually by $2 billion of American help to Egypt).
The causes of this festering pathological process are
grounded in centuries of oppressive and xenophobic ideological
indoctrination and regimes reflecting the power structure peculiar to
Islamic countries. Dictators and kings ruling these countries do not come
from outer space. A direct line can be drawn from the family system, in
which Islam codifies absolute submission to the rule of man, to the tribal
system to the state system, which is invariably centered around a dictator
or, if he gets lucky and happens to be born at a right historic time, an
absolute monarch. Lacking blood relations that protect a patriarchal
family structure, a dictator has to protect himself with an army, which
is, in turn, prone to look outward for enemies, thereby also feeding
ambitions of the ruler and perceptions of his strength. The ambitions tend
to grow, both as self-rewarding indicators of strength and potency and to
prevent taking over by competitors, who try to project even greater
strength and thus claims to power by ever louder threats directed at a
common enemy. These enemies have changed throughout centuries, but there
have always been, since Islam�s birth, constant common ones�Jews and
Crusaders, People of the Book. It does not matter much whether Saddam, Assad or Arafat are secular dictators as long as they choose the same
traditional enemies and invoke their Islamic heritage and its
inherent ideological systems on the need-to-use basis. To award any of
these dictators with any perceived gains is to feed their power base,
strengthening the need for further gains. This is why Arafat left the
negotiation table upon receiving the most spectacular offer of his whole
career of a gangster chieftain. Receiving it endowed him with enormous
strength on a par with state rulers. Accepting it would, among other
things, deprive him of his and other competing groups� �best� traditional
enemy, which would greatly benefit those groups while greatly
inconveniencing him. Hence, walking out and exercising the newly gained
strength by raising an unprecedented wave of terror.
The
United States should be
aware that in the part of the world where this country�s citizens are
considered Jews and Crusaders goodwill offers have no redeeming value and
only lead to more demands. It is especially dangerous if Crusaders are
perceived as selling off Jews, which would inevitably happen as it rings a
very familiar bell. Pressure on Israel�in order to get on the good side of
Arabs�will lead to an increase in Arab terror against both Israel and the
West, negating any achievements made in the Iraqi war in the standing of
the West from the position of force. Peace-mongering and attempts to
impose �road maps� leading to creation of another terrorist state will
lead to greater wars, as Middle East dictators will erupt with vying for
regional power by attacking an ostensibly weakened enemy.
March 30, 2003
Sharing
the Holy Land
President Bush has
declared that "the Holy Land must be shared between the state of
Palestine and the state of Israel, living in peace with each other, and
with every nation of the Middle East." Perhaps nobody among his immediate
circle can remind the President that the one and only reason why that
land is holy is because it was promised by God - to Jews. The heart of
that Promised and Holy Land is what Jordanians, who illegally occupied it
in 1949-1967, renamed into the "West Bank" -Judea and Samaria. This heart
the President feels authorized to cut from the Land of Israel and hand
over to Arabs, whose only claim to it is contained in their worthless
promise of taking vacation from some of their everyday terror acts.
The very notion of "Palestine" was invented by the Romans in order to
replace the land's real name, Judea, and thus eradicate its connection to
Jews - along with its holiness. It is therefore offensive to Jews, just
as it should be to Christians - the President included, - whose concept
of this land's holiness is founded in the Temple rather than in the al-Aqsa
mosque that currently occupies the Temple Mount and is a namesake of a
group of suicidal mass murderers. The word historically denotes the whole
territory on the east (Jordan) and west of the Jordan River (including
Israel). Neither the chief terrorist Arafat nor his deputy Abbas have
repudiated the Palestinian National Charter, which calls for that whole
land to be Judenfrei (as Jordan is, by its nationality law).
The President
should check whether his "vision" of two states living side by side is
not an illusion based on misconceptions and wishful thinking. The future
22nd Arab state, with which he plans to replace the Holy Land, with its
government of the terrorists, by the terrorists, and for the terrorists,
will have nothing in common with his aspirations.
June 5, 2003
Troubled
President
President Bush has
informed the public that he is "troubled" by the recent Israeli attack on
Rantisi and regrets the loss of innocent life. He is also "concerned the
attacks make it more difficult for the Palestinian leadership to fight
off terrorist attacks." He probably does not see that this "concern" may
be perceived as justification for Abbas's inaction. What is really
troubling, however, is that this language of the State Department has not
changed since before the war in Iraq. It should have, because it has
become even more cynical in the aftermath of the war.
The president had
no trouble sending an army equipped with everything short of nukes to
attack a country that had never been any threat to the US nor had
attacked it in any shape or form, just because that country - maybe - had
some sort of a still unproven WMD program. Neither did the President
have any trouble recognizing that the war would lead to an immense loss
of innocent life (which is still uncounted) or make any peace process
more difficult because of the opposition of the Arab states to that war.
Nor was he troubled by the refusal of the "Palestinian leadership" to
engage in anything more than ceasefire negotiations with terrorist
groups, or by Rantisi's calls for genocide against Jews, by his
leadership in the murderous campaign against Israeli civilians, and his
refusal to even discuss ceasefire with Abbas.
It is hard to
understand why the President thinks that the Israeli blood is cheaper
than American when it comes to fighting terror. It is impossible to share
his "vision of two states living side by side," when it is clear that his
vision is obscured by double standards and his readiness to sacrifice
as many Jews as he deems necessary to pave the road to that mirage.
June 11, 2003 (just before the
Jerusalem bus bombing by Hamas)
P.S. June 22, 2003. No wonder Powell
parroted Bush today, "regretting" the elimination of another murderer,
Abdullah Kawasmeh, a leader of Hamas, declared by Powell himself "enemy
of peace." This is on the day the US Army made another attempt to
kill Saddam and his sons by incinerating a convoy of vehicles, knowing
only "that the convoy was tied to former Iraqi officials" (see
CNN report). There is no end to the State Department's hypocrisy.
Occupiers and natives
I
was invited to celebrate Independence Day by a nice American couple.
Almost everybody there, with a rare Canadian exception, was a US-born
American citizen. I would like to emphasize this ''US-born,'' the point
close to the root of the problems discussed here.
As usual, where a
group of Jews is gathered, the conversation turned to Israel. I had known
that the hosts were staunch liberals. For this reason, and because of the
traditional voting pattern, I expected everybody to be a Democrat (which
I, increasingly reluctantly, was myself). Unexpected, however, were the
opinions regarding Middle East conflicts. First, even though, according to
the polls, support for the Iraq war is the same among Jews as in the rest
of the population, in this highly educated group it was scarce. More
dramatic, it was even scarcer for Israel. There was little time left to
find why exactly, but two main points were clear: Israel was considered
a cruel occupying power, and Arabs were unreservedly viewed as the
suffering party.
I do not need to go
into the much discussed issue of why Israel's rule in the disputed
territories of Judea, Samaria and Gaza is not occupation - an interested
reader is referred to the in-depth and definitive treatment of this issue
by
Eugene Rostow (former
Under Secretary of
State for Political Affairs, 1966-1969, and one of the drafters of UNSC
Resolution 242)
and Dore Gold.
Jews have full legal right to live anywhere in these territories - the
same as the right to live in Tel Aviv or Haifa. Clearly, however, the pro-Arab propaganda, operating with lies and
distortions, has suppressed the influence of any objective information.
Indeed, the human mind is selective in its information processing. It
assimilates better what goes along with a pre-existing perspective (which,
if not based on objective knowledge, is called prejudice), and, within the
time limits afforded, can absorb only a limited amount. This is why the
chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, can comfortably lie about "500
victims" of the Israeli operation in Jenin, perfectly knowing that this
lie will be disproved. He does hot care about his credibility - he knows
he has none. What matters to him as an experienced disciple of Goebbels is
that this abhorrent misinformation is thunderously amplified by the media
and fills the limited information space, feeding on old prejudices and
supplanting truth, just as poisonous carbon monoxide supplants oxygen in
the blood. This means that even if an equal amount of truth were to
follow, it would be inadequate to set the record straight.
Any truth, however, is hardly forthcoming from major media sources, whose reporting
standards have been hopelessly compromised by outright fraud compounded by
anti-Israel bias. Nobody is surprised any longer that The New York Times
published that
photograph of a bloodied Jewish youth, Tuvia Grossman, protected from
the Arab mob by a vicious-looking Israeli policeman � with the title �An
Israeli policeman and a Palestinian on the Temple Mount� - and this is on
the clearly seen background of a gas station (see Mr. Grossman's own
account of that lynch attempt). The pro-Arab bias of the
BBC reaches the level that is no longer tolerable even for the British
government, when this government-funded medium suggests that Iraqi lives
are more endangered now than they were under Saddam (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13753-2003Jul5.html).
BBC�s reporting in Israel has deserved its comparison with another
notorious media source, Nazi �Der Stuermer,� which incited Germans to
genocide (http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAWJW9PJHD.html).
The gross distortion
of truth about Israel is promoted, as it was regarding Jews in Nazi Germany, by a
distinct group of intellectuals, whose left, right, Muslim, socialist and
other platforms converge on one point � their otherwise covert or overt
Jew-hatred. The difference from the Nazi situation is two-fold. First, as
Martin Luthe IKing incisively commented, �The times have made it
unpopular, in the West, to proclaim openly a hatred of the Jews.� Second,
the left were themselves persecuted by Hitler, so that they had little
chance to join him in his genocidal effort. The same is true about
Jew-haters among the Jews themselves, whose participation in Nazi crimes
was limited to the few collaborationists who served in Judenrats (ghetto
councils) and ghetto police. The times of war usually polarize people�s
positions, and gradations in politically charged opinions become less
likely. Nowdays, in what we � erroneously - perceive as peace, the Jewish
opponents of>ksrael vary in shades from disliking the thought that they
may be identified with whatever antisemitic/anti-Israel stereotypes and prejudice the
Gentile population may entertain (which in case of
Steven Rose extends to disliking the source of his misfortune of being
born Jewish � his parents) to acting as a supporter of the mass murderers
of Jews. The latter, the contemporary candidates for the ghetto police and
Auschwitz capo jobs, include, but not limited to,
Stanley Cohen,
the narcissistic Hamas attorney paid from the
money this terrorist group gets from Saudis for murdering Jewish babies,
and the Jewish members of the
International Solidarity Movement who "recognize the Palestinian right
to resist Israeli violence and occupation via legitimate armed struggle".
Regardless of
psychological and historical roots of anti-Israelism (have I just coined a
term for a variety of good old antisemitism?), the result is the same �
the unshakeable belief that Israel is illegitimate and occupies the land
whose natives � Arabs � have been treated as (or more) unjustly as were American
Indians. The peculiar interweaving of these roots has resulted in the
cancellation of a simple truth that the natives in the Land of Israel are
Jews. Arabs are invaders or, at best, settlers, just as, before them, were Babylonians,
Assyrians, Greeks, Romans and whoever else tortured the Holy Land. The only
difference from other invaders is that Arabs have never even ruled over
�Palestine,� except when 75% of it was cut off by the British in 1921 and
handed over to their puppet Abdullah bin Husayn for his service as his fiefdom.
It is ironic that the emirate, and later kingdom, where Jews have been
prohibited by law from settling, was given a Jewish name � the name of the
Jordan river.
The Jewish presence
in the whole of the Land of Israel has never been interrupted, despite all
efforts of invaders. But even in places where it was, as it happened in
Hevron (Hebron) after Arab pogroms inspired by the Nazi mufti Amin al-Husseini,
this does not make invaders natives, just as nobody will think of white
New Yorkers as Native Americans, even though the tribes who used to live
on Manhattan may not even exist anymore. Being US-born, even in several
generations, does not make you a native of the land. The difference in the
perception of �nativeness� is all the more striking considering that
Indians left no cities on Manhattan, whereas the �Palestinian� city of
Hevron, under this very name, was the first capital of Israel under King
David, when nobody had even heard of Arabs. The tombs of the Jewish
patriarchs are there, in the place bought by Abraham. That Jews could come
and worship there again only after the Six Day War, after 700 years of
prohibition under Muslim �tolerant� rule, had not made the cave of Machpelah Arab. It is the Jewish names under which this land is known to
all humanity, despite all efforts to rename Hevron into al-Khalil,
Jerusalem into Aelia Capitolina (Romans) or al-Quds (Arabs), and the whole
land into Syria Palaestina (Romans), Palestine (British), or Filastiniya
(Arabs). No Orwellian effort to rewrite history can change the fact that
Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) has been the capital of the Jewish - and no other - State since
King David. Hevron is located in Judean Hills, Judea, the land of Jews.
July 19, 2003
Book reviews
Peters, J.
From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over
Palestine. J K A P Pubns, 2001.
This book is a
systematic fact-based account and debunking of pervasive myths regarding
the relationships between Arabs, Jews, and "Palestine." Joan Peters
competently and unambiguously exposes, in particular, a facet of Arab
history that is a series of invasions into the prosperous Jewish lands,
from Medina in Arabia, first populated by Jews-to the "land of milk and
honey," followed by the persecution, extermination and displacement of
Jews and the conversion of the lands into desolation and desert. The
robbery of the territory - including that with the help of the British who
gave 80% of historic Palestine to Arabs to form Trans-Jordan
(Jordan) - still continues in the creation and reification of the mythic
notion of Arab "Palestinians" as the native population of ... "Palestine,"
which population is thus naturally entitled to what is left of that land.
This is despite the facts that the only state that has ever existed on
that territory is Jewish, Arabs ruled that territory (and Arabs in
general) only for decades under Omayyads in 7-8th centuries CE, Jews have
had an uninterrupted presence there in defiance of continuous Arab and
Christian violence, and the overwhelming majority of Arabs came there
recently from surrounding countries on the heels of Jewish repatriation
that provided jobs for them. The territorial robbery by Arabs was preceded
by and further extended into the robbery of ideas and Orwellian attempts
to displace Jewish and Christian history, with the immediate distortion of
these ideas to fit the mentality of the plunderer - subjugation of
non-Muslims ("dhimmis"), women, and - a logical development - their own
peasants and subjects. This system for its maintenance has required
constant invention of an external enemy, for which Jews and the West in
general are convenient and traditional targets. This is a system of
continuous warfare - and war, as Mohammed said, "is deception." It is this
deception that is exposed and destroyed by "From Time Immemorial."
February 2002
Friedman,
T.L. From Beirut to Jerusalem (Updated with a New Chapter).
Anchor, 1990.
The book
attempts to compensate the lack of depth and informative reporting by
personal anecdotes and descriptions of the author's thought processes
triggered by very newsworthy but scarcely described events. Posturing as
omniscient judge, he grades peoples and governments, particularly Israel
and Israelis, probably assuming that he has a right to do that as a Jew
(and what kind of Jew would the Jew-hating and terror-supporting Saudi
crown prince Abdullah
trust, as it has recently happened, to be his personal spokesman?).
As for his self-perception as a Jew, he provides a telling detail: on
Israeli Remembrance Day, when, on a siren signal, everybody stops to
honor those who fell fighting for Israel, he, "still sitting in [his]
car, was the only one not affected" (p. 275). He seems to take
unhealthy pleasure in unreservedly assigning Israel as a country "a
one-year warranty - that no one is sure will be honored" (p. 277).
Importantly, the credibility of the narration is undermined by what looks
like the author's lack of knowledge (which would be strange) or
misinformation, as when he repeatedly excludes what is now Jordan from
mandatory and historic Palestine.
April 2002
Letters and emails
Jerusalem-Yerushalayim
2.21.2001. - Thank you for
your message. This idea [internationalization of Jerusalem] has actually
been discussed a lot. My guess is that one of the reasons why the idea
of the internationalization of Yerushalayim is so popular is the very
fact that people think of the city as "Jerusalem." This, i.e., the fact
that they read about this city in their own language starting as
children--and it is called by an oh-so-familiar name--gives people a
feeling they can consider it their own. Related to that, it would
probably be difficult for any non-Arab Christian to think of it as "al-Quds,"
wouldn't it? That's how Arabs think of it, though, which makes the city
"theirs." Since, however, it's about as legitimate as thinking of it as
"Jerusalem," there is a chance that Christians would readily endorse
shared sovereignty over it with Muslims (even though they used to be very
much against that, especially during the Crusades).
The problem is, both these religions hold
the city holy (although Muslims officially rank it #3, as you know--I
don't know whether there is a rank ascribed to it by any branches of
Christianity) only because it is holy to Judaism. Hence, to Jesus; hence,
to Mohammed (with a possibility that the latter did not consider it holy
at all). This is somehow frequently forgotten. Muslims used to remember
it well, when, under Turks, they handed the keys from the Old City to
Yerushalayim's Chief Rabbi on the death of one sultan and the accession
of another. Arabs did not raise any intifadas then about that--they could
not care less (the city was also considered a backwater by Turks), and
the Turks dealt harshly with rioters.
There is probably no precedent in history
for making a city exterritorial just because, in addition to the nation
to which it belongs, somebody else considers it holy. Imagine what the
Saudis would say if Iraqis and Jordanians suggested to make Mecca
exterritorial because it is holy to all Muslims--and this is just Muslims
only, and Mecca is the #1 Muslim holy place and is not even the kingdom's
capital.
The root of the problem is not in the name
of the city, of course, but in the very existence and legitimacy of
Israel, with which neither the Western nor the Arab mentality seems to be
able to come to terms. That's why there is a notion that anybody but not
the Israelis can decide what should be done with the Holy Land (another
convenient euphemism allowing one to disregard the primary reason for its
holiness) and Jerusalem, and what capital, if any, they should have. It's
encouraging that there are at least some (eg Buddhists) that "might not
be interested" in having their say about converting another nation's
capital into an international retreat :-) . I also know for sure that
Yerushalayim's being under Israel's jurisdiction has never prevented
anybody, Christians included, from meditating there (unless meditating
included stoning)--ask anybody who visited the city. The same cannot, of
course, be said about the time when the Old City was under the Arab
(Jordanian) control.
On a lighter note, there might be some
logistic problems with your retreat plan: one part of the city is
internationally recognized Israeli (if we need this recognition for "the
claim of the Israelis for possession of and political sovereignty over
Jerusalem")--I am afraid Israelis won't cede it to be a retreat. As for a
"place with no materialistic culture at all" [you want it to be] -- the
other part, particularly a huge portion of the Old City, has been
converted by Arabs into a market, including a meat market with sheep
heads prominently displayed (I could show you a tape of my own
production), which is hardly conducive to meditation. The Old City, by
the way, IS Yerushalayim: there was no city outside its walls until at
least mid-19th century, and there were twice as many Jews as Muslims or
Christians there even then. So you may not need what is already
recognized as Israeli, after all, and will first have to convince Pal.
Arabs that they need to forget about east Jerusalem as their capital,
which they unconditionally claim as such even before having any state.
And anyway, if the "human species needs to try the experiment of having a
genuine place of peace to visit but not to live in" [as you put it]--why
should it be at the expense of tiny Israel and its capital, where people
have LIVED IN for over 4,000 years?
"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my
right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue
cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief
joy."
________________________________
Winning war on terrorism (president@whitehouse.gov)
10.2.2001 - In biology--my field of
work--there is a clear understanding that infection cannot be stopped
unless the infectious agent is controlled. In the current situation with
the increasing spread and severity of terrorism, one of the most likely
agents of religious, moral and monetary support for terrorism and
anti-Americanism is the currently predominant orthodox branch of Sunni
Islam. This branch originates from Saudi Arabia (Wahhabi, absolute
monarchy with no dissent or political parties allowed, the Shari'a law no
less enforced than under the Taliban). The other, no less orthodox,
branch of Islam, is, of course, Iran's Shi'a.
However strong our desire
is to exculpate these versions of Islam (again, currently covering almost
the whole religious Islamic community) as such, there seems to be no
deviation from these orthodox interpretations of the Koran and Hadith by
terrorists, which is probably why there have been no fatwahs prohibiting
terrorism as commonly understood in the West. Instead, the "killing of
innocents" is condemned by almost all Islamic clerics--with any Muslim's
understanding that infidels and unbelievers are not innocent, whereas if
any righteous Muslim happens to perish in the terrorist act, he, just
like the perpetrator, becomes a "martyr" with the consequent benefits.
The fact that orthodox Islamists have access to Western education and
technology is analogous to bacteria's obtaining genomic components that
provide them with resistance to antibiotics and increase in virulence.
Regrettably, reading the Koran and Hadith leaves an impression that, if
they are accepted as a guide for physical and spiritual life, other than
an orthodox interpretation of these sources is difficult and requires
effort and intelligence that are unlikely to be widely available.
It is
thus likely that if an Islamic reform--viz., its forced global
deradicalization--is not included in strategic planning, the war on
terrorism is to fail in the long run. As long as Islam remains in the
form of its current predominant strains, it will continue erupting in
increasingly more severe terrorism and create conditions propitious for
other kinds of societal disorder. The latter is especially noteworthy
considering the fast spread of Islam in the world, the US included. It
should be taken into account that the goal of orthodox Islam is
world-wide conversion. No homeland defense or counter-terrorism agency is
capable of coping with that problem, any more than local disinfectants
are capable of helping in leprosy.
The reform cannot be conducted without the
removal of orthodox Islamic governments. A working model for their
replacement in an Islamic country was provided by Ataturk (the threat of
orthodoxy in Turkey would also subside if other countries are reformed).
The removal of the Taliban (or even Saddam, who represents an eruption
rather than a causative agent) is insufficient. Links to Osama need to be
found in the Saudi government starting with the king and crown prince
Abdallah, all princes arrested and their assets seized and redistributed
by the new regime with an Ataturk-like outlook. Saudi citizens are
unlikely to mind, because they know that the
princes rob them. This is
likely to press orthodox Islamic regimes (regardless of whether Sunni or Shi'a) into starting a jihad (the terrorists' plan they will pursue
anyway), which should lead to their replacement with Ataturk-like secular
governments. This will move action from the level of a poorly defined
"terrorist network" to the transparent level of states. The PLO--a
terrorist organization that usurped the rights of moderate Arabs and has
had an explicit goal of the physical elimination of Israel--will be
disbanded, its leaders tried, and the "refugees" resettled in Jordan and
other countries where they currently live in "camps," thus solving the
"Palestinian" problem and ensuring security for Israel. The war will
result in the deradicalization of Islam similar to how Germany was
denazified and Japan was demilitarized. The combined resources of Arab
and other Islamic states are unlikely to withstand a NATO or
US/British/Israeli assault.
8.7.2002. - A follow-up.
Fortunately, understanding that the roots of terror are in the sands of
Saudi Arabia seems to be reaching the decision-making level. As
reported by the Washington Post (Thomas E. Ricks, Washington
Post Staff Writer, Tuesday, August 6, 2002, Page A01), a briefing by a
Rand Corporation analyst presented on July 10 to
the Defense Policy Board that advises the Pentagon on defense policy
concluded that "Saudi Arabia supports our enemies and attacks our
allies." It correctly described Saudi Arabia as "the kernel of evil, the
prime mover, the most dangerous opponent" in the Middle East. It
indicated that the "Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain,
from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist
to cheerleader." The paper informs that "One administration official said
opinion about Saudi Arabia is changing rapidly within the U.S.
government. 'People used to rationalize Saudi behavior,' he said. 'You
don't hear that anymore. There's no doubt that people are recognizing
reality and recognizing that Saudi Arabia is a problem.'"
Whereas the
briefing suggested removing Saddam first, describing him as a larger
problem may be related to his immediate capabilities with weapons of mass
destruction. The "kernel of evil" characterization (clearly in the
development of the "axis of evil" metaphor) and the "prime mover"
role point in the right direction. Leaking through the media this
information, including the recommendation "that U.S. officials give it
[Saudi Arabia] an ultimatum to stop backing terrorism or face seizure of
its oil fields and its financial assets invested in the United States,"
can be considered an ultimatum by itself.
______________________________________
Peace in the Middle East (oped@nytimes.com)
4.10.2002. - After saying many
times that the President �understands� Israeli actions, the
administration has given no explanation for its demand for Israel to stop
its offensive and withdraw. In a striking demonstration of double
standard, President Bush cites �daily humiliation of Palestinians� at
check-points, perfectly knowing the reason for these check-points�
existence and�contrary to his own statements�invoking the notion that
somebody�s grievances can justify terror. The Israeli government,
however, performs its duty by protecting its nation following the Bush
Doctrine and pursuing terrorists and those who harbor them. Israel is
much more considerate of civilian casualties that the US in its current
war effort, abstaining from using its air force, and risking soldiers�
lives for the sake of innocent civilians. It may be worth remembering
that the United States has had a harsh and�still�unique response to one
of its enemies that used to send suicide bombers against its military:
two nuclear attacks on heavily populated cities with exclusively civilian
population, immediately killing 115,000 people and maiming countless
others. This has frequently been justified as an operation that prevented
many more deaths. Japan was hardly a threat to the United States'
existence. The Arab world has had the goal of Israel's annihilation from
the moment of its birth. It is not going to change overnight after over
half a century of antisemitic incitement from Arab leaders. There are
thus no �two sides that need to talk to each other.� Israel has never had
a purpose of eliminating an Arab state, but the Arab world has never
reconciled itself with Israel�s existence. Israel should be helped in its
fight, instead of protecting terrorists from it by stopping Israeli
military operations, and the US needs to expand its operations to uproot
the causes of terrorism. Only elimination of terrorism can bring peace to
the Middle East.
Jerusalem, Israel's capital
(president@whitehouse.gov)
August 11, 2002. - Israel is the
only sincere ally of the United States in our war against terror. Israel
has also been under continuous Arab and Muslim attack since the moment of
its birth. It has defeated its enemies in all wars it has had and is
currently waging a war imposed on it by the bloody Arafat regime
supported by Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Lebanon. These are the
same enemies that the US will have to deal with.
While it has been victorious, Israel is the only state in contemporary
history that is not allowed to benefit from its victories and is
criticized for the collateral damage that Israel ensures to be minimal by
risking lives of its own soldiers in its response to aggression. Even the
eternal capital of Israel, Jerusalem, which had been illegally held by
Jordan before it was liberated in 1967 after Jordan attacked Israel, is
not recognized as such by the "international community," including,"
regrettably, the United States.
The long-promised transfer of the US Embassy to Jerusalem and the
recognition of the city as Israel's indivisible capital by the US
government would be a clear signal to both friends and enemies that
justice prevails in this world, not only in the World To Come.
October 1, 2002. - Follow-up. As
today's New York Times
reports in Debating Israel's 'Capital' (I don't know why
Capital is in quotes in the title of that brief report), "President
Bush, at the risk of angering the Arab and Muslim worlds, signed
legislation today [September 30] that requires his administration to
identify Jerusalem as Israel's capital." As
reported by the Jerusalem Post, Section 214
of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, "United States Policy with
Respect to Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel" that was signed into law
by Bush, prohibits the use of congressionally approved funds for any US
government document that lists countries and their capital cities but
does not identify Jerusalem as the capital of Israel." Sounds great,
doesn't it? It is unclear, however, how exactly the US risks the fearsome
Arab and Muslim anger in this case (if not because of the pervasive
hatred of the US in the Muslim world). The clause calling on the
president to immediately begin relocating the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to
Jerusalem was said in the statement by the White House, "if construed as
mandatory rather than advisory, [to] impermissibly interfere with the
president's constitutional authority to formulate the position of the
United States, speak for the nation in international affairs, and
determine the terms on which recognition is given to foreign states. US
policy regarding Jerusalem has not changed." This disgusting policy,
promised to be changed by every presidential candidate only to be reneged
on the promise after election, is that the US does not recognize
Jerusalem as Israel's capital, saying such recognition would prejudge
final status negotiations with Palestinian Arabs, who want part of
Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. The White House invokes a
national security waiver every six months to avoid moving the
embassy to Jerusalem, as required by a law passed in 1995.
Response to an "Open Letter from American Jews"
In summer of 2002, a letter with this
title was circulated via email soliciting signatures in its support. It
also appeared as a (very expensive) full page ad in the New York Times
(July 17). The letter purported to offer a solution to the ongoing
Arab-Israeli conflict from the positions that have deserved this letter's
publication and signature collection at an Israel-hating "Palestine
Media Watch" website. (You won't find there any reports of the
extrajudicial Palestinian killings of SUSPECTED "collaborators,"
including a 35-year old mother of seven after her son was tortured into a
"confession"). I sent my response to this letter to its originator, Alan
Sokal, with no luck for getting a reply (the quoted text informs of the
letter's content).
August 1, 2002. - Dear Dr. Sokal:
Whereas I wish nothing more than peace for Israel (in addition to my love
for her, my close relatives live there), I am writing to express my
disagreement and deep concern with the letter. The reasons include but
are not limited to, the following:
1. There is no "Palestinian" people - there are Arabs living in Israel,
Jordan, and disputed territories (please see
http://www.pitt.edu/~mmv/israel.htm#misnomer);
2. the Arabs have no "legitimate fears" outside of Israeli response to
terror;
3. they suffered no "great wrongs at the hands of the other" [the letter
suggests that "both
the Israeli and Palestinian peoples have suffered great wrongs at the
hands of the other"];
4. their notion of "compromise" does not include Israel's existence;
5. they have already got MORE THAN their "fair share of the land and
resources of historic Palestine" (Jordan) wherein Jews are explicitly
constitutionally banned from settling;
6. "partition along the pre-1967 border as modified only by minor
mutually agreed territorial swaps" would be extremely dangerous for and
unfair to Israel (the territories were gained as a result of a war of
defense - and not from "Palestine," but from Jordan and Egypt who had
illegally occupied them after a war of aggression); the territories,
according to the legal definition, are not occupied, but disputed;
7. "Israeli evacuation of all settlements in the occupied territories
except those within the agreed swapped areas," i.e., ethnic cleansing of
Jews, should logically be reciprocated by all Arabs' "evaculation" from
Israel;
8. "Arab recognition of Israel and renunciation of any further
territorial claims," even if made, cannot be trusted any more than
Arafat's Oslo and other promises (the "Hudaybiya" peace); it cannot be
enforced because their governments will not be made responsible for
anti-Israel terror just as they are not now;
9. "Palestinian acceptance of negotiated limitations on the "right of
return" in exchange for financial compensation for refugees" is (a) as
trustworthy as anything they ever lied about, (b) the terrorist groups
would negate any such acceptance, (c) there has been no "right of return"
for any refugees anywhere in the world, (d) nobody has compensated or is
going to compensate Jewish refugees, including those from Arab/N.
African/Muslim countries (half of the Israeli Jewish population), (e) the
Arab refugees' plight is completely the responsibility of Arab states who
created them in the first place by attacking Israel in 1948 and then
prevented them from absorption and immigration;
10. the assumption that "Despite the current carnage... Israelis and
Palestinians [may still be] willing to accept a compromise" based on the
polls "several years ago" is wrong because the
CURRENT polls indicate
otherwise;
11. presenting the situation as that "majorities on both sides support
provocative military actions" is egregiously wrong as it equalizes
deliberate terror and defense against it, and calls terror attacks a
"military action" on a par with the IDF's response to them, thus
legitimizing them;
12. American "national security is deeply undermined" not by "instability
and injustice in the Middle East" (to whom?) but by the existence of the
virulent strains of Islam that legitimize terror and violence and by the
incessant indoctrination of the young people to that effect by Arab and
Islamic governments, in schools, mosques, and the media;
13. "the international community"'s taking "the lead in promoting" "a
workable peace" is vague, condescending to both parties, and will
unlikely be agreed upon by at least one of them;
14. the HIGHLIGHT of the letter is in the point that the US "has an
extraordinary leverage on Israeli policy, if only our government would
dare to use it," which indicates that it is directed at prompting the US
government to pressure Israel - and Israel only - to make more
unreciprocated concessions with no guaranty that the other party will
even consider any;
15. a suggestion that "Foreign troops may well be required to enforce it
[two-state settlement], and they must be prepared to accept casualties"
shows how little trust the letter's drafters have in the positive outcome
that is supposed to result from a long gradual process. This outcome
cannot be termed "an imperfect peace," and it does not differ from
"endless war."
Finally, I request and sincerely hope that the authors change the title
of the letter by deleting "American Jews" from it, because, as it stands
now, it can be conceived of as the letter's expressing the opinion of all
or the majority or at least a significant proportion of the American
Jews, which may be an erroneous assumption. Even if it were not so (which
we cannot know without, at least, a poll), it could imply that those Jews
who, like myself, disagree with the letter, are not American, or not
Jews, or both.
Site posted: May 4, 2002
Updated: July 19, 2003
�Michael Vanyukov,
2002, 2003
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