Daphne Anson: Amid Oxford's Dreaming Spires, Israel Seen By At Least Some As "A Force For Good In The Middle East"

Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East. (From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Sunday, 3 February 2013

Amid Oxford's Dreaming Spires, Israel Seen By At Least Some As "A Force For Good In The Middle East"

As Bibi Netanyahu said so eloquently and so stirringly a couple of years ago:

"In a region where women are stoned, gays are hanged, Christians are persecuted, Israel ... is different.... Of the 300 million Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, only Israel's Arab citizens enjoy real democratic rights.... Israel is not what is wrong about the Middle East. Israel is what is right about the Middle East."

(I love that quotation so much that I have it, of course, on my sidebar.)

How very sad it is, that despite all of the humanitarian, medical, and technological breakthroughs Israel has achieved for the benefit of humankind as a whole, despite it being the first country in the Middle East to enfranchise Arab women, and despite its tolerance of homosexuals in contrast to so many of its neighbours, the motion that "Israel is a Force for Good in the Middle East" was lost in a debate at the Oxford Union last week.

The drip drip drip of media bias and other propaganda has again wrought its mischievous work.

Declares Oxford graduate Jonathan Hoffman of the results of the debate at the Oxford Union:

"It’s well nigh impossible to win an Israel debate at a British University, so to achieve nearly 40 per entof the vote is a great achievement."

And as one of the most doughty, combative, and energetic of Israel's champions in the United Kingdom, he's in a position to know.

His illuminating account of the debate, dated 1 February, is cross-posted below from the JCBlogs.

Writes Jonathan Hoffman:

'The motion "This House Believes That Israel is a Force For Good in the Middle East" was defeated 132-208 at the Oxford Union Debating Society last night. It was a good debate with none of the drama that has preceded some other Israel debates at the Union. For example in 2007 most of the external speakers pulled out after Norman Finkelstein was disinvited (the motion was "This House Believes that One State is the Only Solution to the Israel Palestine Conflict" and Finkelstein bizarrely was invited to speak against the motion). It was clear from the quality of the debate that a lot of hard work had gone into the evening by Union President Maria Rioumine [for whom see here] and her colleagues.

For the motion were Ella Robertson, a student at Balliol; Alan Mendoza (Director, Henry Jackson Society, replacing Stephen Pollard [editor of the Jewish Chronicle] at very short notice), Richard Perle (Assistant Secretary of Defence under President Reagan), and Lord [David] Trimble (Co-founder of Friends of Israel Initiative and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate for helping secure peace in Northern Ireland).

Against were Ghada Karmi, Baroness Jenny Tonge, Anna Baltzer (a pro-Palestinian campaigner in the US), and [gay rights campaigner] Peter Tatchell.

It’s well nigh impossible to win an Israel debate at a British University so to achieve nearly 40 per ceent of the vote is a great achievement. And the speakers for the motion were good.

Ella Robertson spoke about Israel’s contribution to stability in the region, to democracy and liberalism and to the economy of the Middle East.

Alan Mendoza pointed out that Israel produces weapons of peace – for example, Iron Dome, which was possibly the main reason why the Israeli government did not feel obliged to commit ground forces in Operation Pillar of Defence last year. He contrasted Israel’s liberalism with Gaza where students have recently been forced to wear Islamic dress.

Richard Perle suggested that the criticism from the opposition speakers was not criticism of Israel per se but criticism of Israel’s right to defend itself. Israel’s non-aggressive nuclear policy was proved by the fact that Saudi Arabia and Egypt would want a nuclear capability if Iran had one but they have never wanted one to counter Israel’s assumed nuclear capability.

Lord Trimble spoke of his own experience on the Turkel Committee. Cabinet papers had been made available to the Committee and moreover he had seen that all orders placed with Israeli coordinators by merchants in Gaza had been fulfilled. He said that Palestinian negotiators had failed even to respond to Olmert’s peace offer. If Israel was genuinely bent on enlarging its territory – as the opposition claimed – then it would have annexed Judea and Samaria years ago. When asked if they wanted to join a Palestinian State, Israeli Arabs expressed an overwhelming desire to stay in Israel.

From the opponents of the Motion came the usual fallacies:

From Ghada Karmi

-that the Haganah terrorised Arabs into fleeing in 1948 (wrong – as Efraim Karsh has shown, the majority of the Arab refugees did not flee in response to Jewish forces – the Mayor of Haifa even pleaded with them to stay);

-that Israel has ‘caused four wars’!;

-that Israel takes 80% of the water of Judea and Samaria – not true;

From a remarkably restrained Jenny Tonge

-that Islamic extremism is caused by Israel; nonsense, the Muslim Brotherhood – the first extremist organisation – was founded in 1930

Peter Tatchell showed three maps which purported to show that Israel had ‘grabbed land’ but in fact showed that Israel had successfully defended itself three times and had successively moved into more defensible areas. And he said 'Jews deserve a homeland but not at the expense of the indigenous people' – but the fact is that Jews are an 'indigenous people' with practically unbroken presence near Jerusalem for thousands of years.

From Anna Baltzer we got the ‘apartheid’ comparison – she cited some South African Commission which concluded that Israel practises so-called ‘apartheid’. This of course is The Big Lie – otherwise why would most Israeli Arabs say that they would prefer to live in Israel than in a Palestinian State?

Omar Shweiki, a Palestinian, also spoke with passion against the motion from the floor.

Unfortunately there is not time in these debates to unpick some of the falsehoods. It is that – plus media bias plus the naïve perception of the Palestinians as ‘underdogs – which make motions like these so hard to win, however good the pro-Israel speakers. [Emphasis added here and below]

But to get nearly 40 per cent support for Israel at a British university in this day and age is a triumph."

5 comments:

Ian3 February 2013 at 18:48
This is good
Non-Jewish New Orleans University Sophomore Creates “Allies for Israel”
http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/02/01/non-jewish-new-orleans-university-sophomore-creates-%E2%80%9Callies-for-israel-video/
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Jewess4 February 2013 at 06:30
I disagree that 40% is a triumph. To me, that is like saying that a less than majority for democracy, freedom and human rights in a British University is a triumph. It is a dismal failure for the UK and for the world. Especially since the opposing side offered nothing but the usual litany of lies, slander and anti-Semitism - um, excuse me, anti-Zionism. While 40% support is not a complete loss, it is 50% below what a modern, democratic institution of higher learning should vote.

Thank you for starting with Bibi's quote. I feel so fortunate that he remains our leader.
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Jewess4 February 2013 at 06:31
Forgot to say .. mazal tov on the MUCH deserved Hasby!!!
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'For as long as these antisemites wrap themselves up in the Palestinian flag, too many people are willing to turn a blind eye. Only against Jews is this type of racism openly tolerated. It is flourishing in schools, colleges, universities, unions and in city councils. In fact, so rampant is the disease now, in some settings you can be ostracised if you do not partake in the frenzy yourself. Bashing Jews has becomes a trendy position for the ignorant social justice warrior. "Palestinianism" is a viral "ponzi scheme" and as it spreads, it carries antisemitism in the undergrowth.' David Collier (2017)

'This new rise in antisemitism, which I had thought long dead, was not shaven-headed white imbeciles from the far right. It was Muslims, a large chunk of it.... Suddenly I grasped that the British far left didn’t want people to know about antisemitism because it pointed the finger at people they really, really liked. From that moment on, it all fell into place.... Time and again the same tropes emerged, the same sort of stuff that Streicher and Goebbels would have commended – and uttered.... And from that a whole bunch of other stuff emerged: the old blood libel business (a favourite of the repulsive Jenny Tonge).... Nice, avuncular, Jeremy Corbyn, with his peace badges, happily laying a wreath at the graveside of Palestinian terrorists who murdered innocent Jewish athletes, oh, and much much more.... It is the same antisemitism, exactly the same: the obsession with Israel to the exclusion of everything else, the conspiracy theory paranoias, the derangement.... Here’s the test – if you cannot see the flagrant racism in the BDS movement, and if you are obsessed with the perfidy of the Middle East’s only democracy to the exclusion of all else, you are an antisemite. That means a good proportion of the Labour Party, including the leader, and almost all of Momentum: no brown shirts, no marching bands, but the same old filth, dressed in the clothes of a polytechnic geography lecturer.'
Rod Liddle (2018)

'Before the June 1967 Six Day War, there were no such things as "settlements". Palestinians were trying to destroy and displace Israel anyhow. The core problem is not, and never was, "settlements," but the right of Israel (or any non-Muslim nation) to exist inside any borders in that part of the world.
If you take a stand that is based on a lie, then that stand cannot succeed. If you try to oppose antisemitism but pretend it is the same thing as "Islamophobia," then the structure on which you have made your stand will totter and all your aspirations will fail. If you try to make a stand based on the idea that settlement construction rather than the intransigence of the Palestinians to the existence of a Jewish state is what is holding up a peace deal, then facts will keep on intruding.' Douglas Murray (31 December 2016)
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9685/britain-little-lies

'Islamophobia does NOT come from the same wellspring of hatred as antisemitism. Antisemitism is a true prejudice because the hatred and demonisation it promotes derive entirely from lies and a repudiation of rationality itself.
Islamophobia is a false allegation of prejudice which is deployed to silence rational criticism based on actual facts about attitudes and practices within the Islamic world.
[L]ethally compromised even-handedness is to misunderstand, and thus minimise, antisemitic attitudes and behaviour while shutting down legitimate and necessary discussion of the threat from the Islamic world – even to demonise as “Islamophobic” anyone who draws attention to the extent and consequences of Muslim antisemitism.' Melanie Phillips (14 December 2016)

Jews have re-assumed the role of the canary in the mine and are the first to be targeted, but the world would face the same threat if Jews did not exist. Israel has been at the front lines confronting Islamic extremism but has received scant support... For Jews, the writing has been on the wall for a long time. The virulence of the antisemitic hatred closing in on Jews in Europe (and elsewhere) is horrifying...
Europe is today facing a crisis as serious as the confrontation with Nazism. If Western leaders continue behaving like Chamberlain and fail to stand up to this global threat, it could usher in a new Dark Age in which the Judeo-Christian culture is subsumed by primitive barbarism. The writing is on the wall Isi Leibler (12 January 2015)

Expose The Lies!

There is a war of lies and deceit on the internet generating unbelievable hate by denigrating and delegitimising the legal rights conferred on the Jewish people by the League of Nations in 1922 and the United Nations in 1945. The idea that there are two narratives on the Arab-Jewish conflict is rubbish. There is only one – the factual truth that details the return of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in its ancient biblical, ancestral and historic homeland after 3500 years of dispersion with the unanimous endorsement of the nation states then comprising the League of Nations.... Generals can’t fight a war without soldiers. Jews around the world need to join the fight or vacate the internet to the Jew-haters and their lies that repeated often enough eventually become accepted as truth. David Singer (2016)

The "Apartheid" Slur

The division of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) into three separate areas “A”, “B” and “C” was agreed on by Israel and the PLO pursuant to the Oslo Accords.
95% of the West Bank Arabs live in Areas A and B and their daily lives are under the total administration and control of the PLO since the Palestinian Authority was disbanded by Abbas in January 2013. The PLO has total security control in A and shares security control in B with Israel. Israel has total administrative and security control in C.
Israel is entitled to and will continue to take responsibility for the security of Jews living in the West Bank.
Jews were given the legal right to settle in the West Bank under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter. They did so for decades until they were driven out in 1947 and not able to return there until 1967.
There are Arab roads only in the West Bank that Jews are not allowed to use. Jews are also forbidden from entering Area “A”. Selling land to Jews is forbidden by the PLO under pain of death. The PLO runs the daily lives of 95% of the West Bank Arabs and Hamas runs the daily lives of 100% of the Gazan Arabs. They have been under occupation – and subjugation – by these two evil groups for the last ten years and given no say in their future or any opportunity to elect others to lead them following the disastrous political decisions of their leaders over the past ten years. Hamas and the PLO do not accept the continued existence of a Jewish State and call for its disappearance.
The narratives did not begin in 1948 – they began in about 1917. How do you make peace with an enemy that has been obsessed with not recognising any Jewish national rights in former Palestine for the last 100 years? David Singer (2016)

The Jews of the Holy Land ... are surrounded by hostile states 650 times their territory and sixty times their population. Yet their last, best hope of ending two millennia of international persecution - the State of Israel - has somehow survived. When, during the Second World War, the island of Malta came through three terrible years of bombardment and destruction, it was rightly awarded the George Cross for bravery. Today, Israel should be awarded a similar decoration for defending democracy, tolerance and Western values against a murderous onslaught that has lasted twenty times as long. Andrew Roberts (historian)

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Iran and ISIS are competing for the crown of militant Islam... In this deadly game of thrones, there’s no place for America or for Israel, no place for Christians, Jews or Muslims who don’t share the Islamist medieval creed, no rights for women, no freedom for anyone... [T]he greatest danger facing our world is the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons. To defeat ISIS and let Iran get nuclear weapons would be to win the battle, but lose the war. We can’t let that happen...[T]he days when the Jewish people remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies, those days are over. We are no longer scattered among the nations, powerless to defend ourselves. We restored our sovereignty in our ancient home. And the soldiers who defend our home have boundless courage. For the first time in 100 generations, we, the Jewish people, can defend ourselves....Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand. But ... I know that America stands with Israel... You stand with Israel, because you know that the story of Israel is not only the story of the Jewish people but of the human spirit that refuses again and again to succumb to history’s horrors. Bibi Netanyahu (12 Adar 5775; 3 March 2015)

The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions, of people, and there is no refugee problem.... [N]o one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees.... Other nations - when they are defeated - survive and recover, but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed.... [A]s it goes with Israel, so it will go with all of us. Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us. Eric Hoffer (1968)

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January 7, 2015 has already its place in the history of infamy, but also will be the date when the defenders of freedom and democracy will rise and pay tribute to those who died for their freedom and ours. Therefore, we must not forget on which side we are and who are our allies in the defense of the West and its values. Whether we admit it or not, the West is at war with an enemy who will not stop to destroy us...
The State of Israel boasts a commandment that, in one of the darkest hours in the fight for liberty Winston Churchill taught: "Never give up". Israel has proven to be a key ally in the fight against Islamism and also an example of how a liberal democracy can resist the jihadist stake and thrive as a Western nation ... Not only France but also all the West should look to Israel to defeat Islamism...
friendsofisraelinitiative.org

[I]t’s impossible to believe that an active antisemite wouldn’t – if only opportunistically – seek out somewhere to nestle in the manifold pleats of Israel-bashing, whether in generally diffuse anti-Zionism, or in more specific Boycott and Divestment Campaigns, Israeli Apartheid Weeks, End the Occupation movements and the like....[T]ell me that not a single Jew-hater finds the activity congenial, that criticising Israel can “never” be an expression of Jew-hating, not even when it takes the form of accusing Israeli soldiers of harvesting organs... Howard Jacobson (The Independent, 27 May 2013)

For Western countries to side with those who question Israel's legitimacy, for them to play games in international bodies with Israel's vital security issues, for them to appease those who oppose Western values, rather than robustly to stand up in defence of those values, is not only a grave moral mistake, but a strategic error of the first magnitude. Israel is a fundamental part of the West. The West is what it is thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish element of those roots is lost and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Jose Maria Aznar

Israel is, for us, a normal and a special country. A normal country, because it is just like any other democracy. A special country, because the Jewish culture, which eventually became the Judeo-Christian culture of the dignity of man, is the conceptual foundation of liberalism and democracy. This is why attacking Israel is tantamount to attacking Europe and the West. This is also why disputing Israel's legitimacy and its right to existence means questioning democracy. And this is why we are Friends of Israel. By defending Israel, we are defending ourselves. Marcello Pera

Israel ... is beset today by a unique combination of threats. It must defend its people from attack while defending its very right to exist. No other nation in the world faces this dual challenge. To deny Israel's right to confront some of the world's most vicious terrorist groups in order to ensure the safety of its citizens is to corrode international norms from within ... The assault on Israel is one part of a more general assault on the West, on democracy, and on the moral and cultural heritage that grew from the fruitful interaction of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome ... Should these efforts succeed, similar efforts will certainly be turned against other western democracies. George Weigel

Apart from America itself, Israel still stands as the world's brightest model of national self-liberation based on ideals of individual responsibility and human freedom. Israel's ability to withstand Arab attempts to destroy it in one of the longest and most lop-sided wars ever fought serves as an indelible testimony to the strength of democratic culture.... We know from the past that the West paid dearly for ignoring Hitler's war against the Jews. One can only hope it will not pay as dearly for having ignored or underestimated for so long the Arab war against Israel and the Jews. Ruth Wisse

I am duty-bound to defend freedom, culture, peaceful coexistence, the civic education of children, and all the principles that the Tablets of the Law have rendered universal. Principles which Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. This means that, since I am a Gentile, a journalist and a leftist, I have a triple moral commitment to Israel. Because, if Israel were to be vanquished, modernity, culture and freedom would also be crushed. Even though the world has failed to wake up to this fact, Israel's struggle is the world's struggle. Pilar Rahola

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