Category Archives: Israel

Future Easters In Jerusalem? Don’t Bet On It

Foreign Policy, Glenn Beck, IMMIGRATION, Islam, Israel, Jihad, Judaism & Jews, Nationhood

If Christians value celebrating the Easter Holy Week in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem’s Old City—and it is majestic, believe me—they ought to pay more attention to the plans the Middle East Quartet is hatching for Israel. The United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia may push Israel to “withdraw to the [indefensible] armistice lines drawn up between the Jewish state and Jordan in 1949.” For the time being, the US has postponed a Quartet meeting, probably because Obama is already in bad odor with American on so many other issues.

Last Friday, Glenn Beck infuriated FoxNews’s Saudi shareholders by taking a symbolic, if unequivocal, stand for the Jew among the nations (yeah, yeah, I oppose foreign aid); for the civilized society (instead of the adjacent savage society). For “in Israel—foibles and frailties notwithstanding—the West has reclaimed a small spot of sanity in a sea of savagery, where enlightened western law prevails, and where Christians and Jews and their holy places are safe. (Muslims are always secure in western societies, Arab-Israelis too.).

When Jews commenced what must be the most remarkable modern-day national revival, Israel was a wasteland. Palestinians had done precious little for the land they purport to so love. As Ludwig von Mises (a utilitarian classical liberal), observed: For centuries the Near East has been a cultural backwater. “The Mohammedans”—to quote the delightfully archaic Mises—have for hundreds of years failed to produce so much as a “book of significance,” much less any scientific or other advancement.

Is there any wonder? The catalysts for creativity and prosperity are the ideas of individual freedom and freedom from the state. As Mises noted, these ideas are inimical to the cultures of the Near East, and the Islamic world in particular. Yet the “civilized” world is working diligently to shrink the civilized sphere that is Israel and expand the barbaric Palestinian Authority. (Question: What does unoccupied Palestinian land look like? Answer: Like Gaza.)

I must say that the rabbi Glenn entertained for his hour long “In Defense of Israel” show instantiated everything that is wrong with the American rabbinate, in particular, and American Jews, in general. Let me explain.

A woman in Beck’s audience asked the perspicacious question about the divide between American and Israeli Jews. Israelis and diaspora Jews: never the twain shall meet. But Rabbi Joseph Potasnik (a real “tembel”) gave her some tribal reply. Where does Glenn find these people? The rabbi was as ghettoized as any representative of CAIR.. Contrast that with the concision with which Dore Gold (a former Israeli ambassador) made his points.

American Jews are left-liberals, for the most, when it comes to the concerns of their fellow Americans, but rightist on matters Israel. In other words, hypocrites. They advocate a multicultural, immigration free-for-all, pluralist pottage for America. But when it comes to Israel, that’s another matter entirely.

As most left-liberal Jews who support Israel see it, Israel has the right to retain its creedal and cultural distinctiveness and its Jewish majority, but not so America. Israel should control immigration and guards its borders, but not the US. Ask this kind of Jew if he supports a “Right of Return” for every self-styled Palestinian refugee, and he’ll say, “Never. Are you insane? That’s a euphemism for Israel’s demise.”

The very thing he opposes for Israel, the left-liberal Jew champions for America: a global right of return to the US for the citizens of the world. When it comes to “returning” to America (but not Israel), humankind has a positive, manufactured right to venture wherever, whenever.

The Brotherhood’s Steel Magnolia

Democracy, Islam, Israel, Law, Middle East, Religion

“Mubarak’s dictatorial powers were directed, unjustly indubitably, against the Islamic fundamentalists of the Muslim brotherhood,” I wrote here. For the sake of accuracy, let’s remember that Mubarak was not an equal opportunity oppressor; he went after members of the Muslim Brotherhood, mainly.

The BBC concedes as much in an upbeat expose on the Brotherhood’s Egyptian acolytes. “For decades, keeping the Brotherhood and other Islamists from power was the main justification for the authoritarian rule of President Hosni Mubarak.” (Here.)

Here are some of the musings of gentle Doha, a Muslim Brotherhood steel magnolia:

“The first thing to do is to sever all ties with Israel because it is the cause of our ruin. And Mubarak was their agent.” …

“Egypt follows French law, and we do not want that, because when someone steals for example, he spends a month in jail and then he’s released to do the same again. But under Sharia law he gets his hand cut off and that’s better.” …

And the least unreasonable of Doha’s beliefs:

“Sharia doesn’t allow women to participate in government because women are emotional. Women should be responsible for their houses and their jobs, but not government,” she said.

The BBC correspondent says that “some of [Doha’s] views reflect the official Muslim Brotherhood line.”

The BBC would never entertain the notion that where the radicalism of dear Doha doesn’t jibe with that of her “moderate” Brothers—it’s because the latter practice Takiya: lying to advance and protect the faith.

It Takes a Man… Or A Merkel

Democracy, Europe, Foreign Policy, Iran, Israel, libertarianism, Media, Middle East

Be it in Africa or Arabia, liberals labor under the romantic delusion that the effects of millennia of development-resistant, fatalistic, superstitious, and cruel cultures can be cured by Facebook, an infusion of foreign aid, or by the removal of the Mubaraks and Mugabes of the respective regions. I hope they are right about Egypt. My non-interventionist, libertarian inclinations jibe with a certain detachment about the events on both the Egyptian and Iranian street. (See “Let’s Fret About Our Own Tyrants.”) I’m nothing if not consistent. As I said (“Frankly, My Dear Egyptians, I Don’t Give a Damn”), “I wish the Egyptians better luck with their next ‘son of 60 dogs’ — that’s an Egyptian expression for political master.”

So far, I’m buoyed by the peacefulness of the protest; Egyptians clearly wish to get on with the business of building their lives. Maintaining the peace with Israel would be an organic extension of the admirable restraint exhibited by the demonstrating Egyptians. Besides, what’s wrong with peace? However, American media have not paused long enough from slobbering to express what German Chancellor Angela Merkel has enunciated (“Merkel: Egypt must keep peace with Israel”):

[Merkerl] welcomed Egyptian President Mubarak’s departure in the face of pro-democracy protests as “a historic change” and a “day of great joy.”
But, Merkel said, “We also expect the future Egyptians governments will uphold peace in the Middle East and respect the treaties concluded with Israel, and that Israel’s safety will be guaranteed.”
Israel’s greatest concern has been that its 1979 peace treaty with Egypt might not survive under a new government, especially if Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood – the largest and most organized opposition group – gains influence. The Brotherhood has opposed the treaty.

Trust a German woman to keep her wits about her. Merkle also has a good record of refusing to heed the hedonist B. Hussein Obama (an agitator from Chicago), who urged her to print and inflate her country’s currency to Weimar-Republic levels.

UPDATED: Sometimes Anti-Semitism is Just Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism, Ethics, Israel, Judaism & Jews, Middle East, Morality, Uncategorized

The bash-Israel business is booming again. I give you the former CIA operative Michael Scheuer:

My long-held position in opposition to foreign aid, in general, and to Israel, in particular, is no different to Scheuer’s. The same goes for my position in opposition to war with Iran.

I’m aligned ideologically with this man’s non-interventionism. Having said that, Scheuer hates Israel. As I said in “Frankly, My Dear Egyptians, I Don’t Give a Damn,” he believes “poor, little America has been ‘Jewed’ into its foreign-policy follies.”

Scheuer’s hatred for “Israel” and AIPAC (The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee) has led him to erroneously conflate the existential realities that confront regular Israelis with the mission of AIPAC (whatever that may be). That’s unforgivable. Most Israelis (and most American Jews) have never heard of AIPAC and the neocons. They just want to live out their lives without being pelted with Qassam rockets from Gaza (where many of them once grew export-quality flowers and vegetables. Gaza now hothouses Jihadis, oops, freedom fighters).

Damn: the stupid Jews are always building things. Why can’t they throw stones like the Egyptians on the studio screen flickering behind Mr. Scheuer. (His host ought to have juxtaposed images of Tel Aviv and Cairo for better effect.) Scheuer, naturally, has never bemoaned the Muslim lobby and the billions we throw at countries who return us the favor with bombs.

“Lobby,” writes a Times Literary Supplement reader in a letter-to-the-editor, “is attached, these days, in a derogatory way, almost exclusively to Jews and their characteristic, so some like to think, habit of seeking/buying/cajoling favors—such as not being murdered—by dubious tricks.” (TLS January 14, 2011)

UPDATE: My own writing is passionately patriotic, but never partisan. I’m pro-Israel, if highly critical of that country. I opposed Israel’s latest attempt to level Lebanon with the same logic and loyalty to principle with which I fought the American war against the Iraqis (starting on Sept 19, 2002). In certain rightist circles, however, a robotic anti-Israel stance is de rigueur.

Thus, over the years—and in the course of writing distinctly patriotic columns such as my latest—I have been both subtly and openly assailed for being a fifth columnist; a person with dual loyalties, a “binational.” I’ve realized that the people who levy such scurrilous accusations against me of all people will never see my work or my words and the flak I’ve taken for unpopular position, which where in the interest of my countrymen, but not its pols and pundits. All they see is a Jew and the attendant stereotypes that attach. For example, in the fact that I’ve lived on three continents, such individuals see a confirmation of the stereotype of a shiftless Jew.

F-ck ’em.

The fulminating Scheuer later went up against Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. During this particular Fox Business segment, Scheuer referred to Shmuley with contempt as “that fellow.” It’s fair to say that the rabbi, with whom I vehemently disagreed, came out on top. Why? Because the rabbi treated his interlocutor with respect. As George Will once wrote, “manners are the practice of a virtue. The virtue is called civility, a word related—as a foundation is related to a house—to the word civilization.”

In anti-Semitic circles, Freud has very sinister connotations. Certainly not much store should be put on his theories about human nature. However, I’ve read Freud’s original works, and see him as an immensely creative and imaginative writer. When Freud was once quizzed about his incessant cigar smoking, he humorously chose to sidestep what was, according to the very theory he invented, a manifestation of his own oral fixation. He replied: “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

And sometimes, anti-Semitism is just anti-Semitism.