Daphne Anson: Ben Stein

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)

Showing posts with label Ben Stein. Show all posts

Tuesday, 26 August 2014

Rooting For The Enemy: Hamas's Jewish Useful Idiots

http://www.creativecommunityforpeace.com/justice/

'We, the undersigned, are saddened by the devastating loss of life endured by Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza. We are pained by the suffering on both sides of the conflict and hope for a solution that brings peace to the region.

While we stand firm in our commitment to peace and justice, we must also stand firm against ideologies of hatred and genocide which are reflected in Hamas' charter, Article 7 of which reads, “There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!” The son of a Hamas founder has also commented about the true nature of Hamas.

Hamas cannot be allowed to rain rockets on Israeli cities, nor can it be allowed to hold its own people hostage. Hospitals are for healing, not for hiding weapons. Schools are for learning, not for launching missiles. Children are our hope, not our human shields.

We join together in support of the democratic values we all cherish and in the hope that the healing and transformative power of the arts can be used to build bridges of peace.'

It's good to see people from the arts community, including Hollywood A-listers, speaking out against Hamas in this way. If only more, many many more, would nail their colours to the mast.

What is particularly satisfying about the above list of signatories is that it includes Roseanne Barr, who has, if reports can be trusted, made some unpleasant references to Israel and Zionism in the past but who has been outspokenly supportive of Israel for some time .

An (occasional) Hollywood personality (Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Torch Song Trilogy), the estimable Ben Stein, observed last month:

"The media in this country for a very long time has been contemptuous of Jews and contemptuous of Jewish life.

This was true during the Holocaust, when the media was largely controlled by old, lying, wealthy, white Protestant males, and it's true now when it's controlled by mostly left-wingers....

The media likes to portray Jews as bullies and murderers and . . . it's kind of amazing to me, because so much of the media is Jewish....

[T]here's a deep-seated self-hatred, especially [among] the New York City elite media.

They want to show they're not Jewish by being anti-Israel, and it's not going to work. We know they're Jewish and we know that they're not being fair to their own people, but they'll keep doing it...

Every story about the war in Gaza should begin with 'Hamas started it, Hamas endlessly refuses to have a ceasefire.'

Hamas could have an incredibly prosperous and happy, peaceful partnership with Israel, and they don't, they prefer to fight, they prefer to kill....''

Now, they might seem naive and innocuous enough, but these protesters (see the videos here and here and here and here) disrupting in relays a fundraising dinner for Israel at the Chicago Hilton on 21 August, at which the city's mayor Rahm Emanuel and Michael Oren (Israel's ex-ambassador to the United States) spoke, are representatives of an odious organisation which effectively gives aid and comfort to Hamas: the bizarrely-named "Jewish Voice For Peace" (JVP).

Bizarrely-named, because as the heading to an article dated 20 August by Yitzhak Santis, Chief Programs Officer at Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor (where he directs the “BDS in the Pews” project) declares

"Jews abetting Hamas are no voice for peace".

Rooting for the enemy

Sinisterly, JVP keeps its source or sources of funding firmly under wraps; needless to say, if we knew who finances it we would know who pulls its strings.

Writes Santis inter alia:

'... JVP’s executive director, Rebecca Vilkomerson, describes her group as “the Jewish wing of the [Palestinian solidarity] movement,” with the mission “to facilitate conversations inside the Jewish community… [to] put that wedge in, saying the Jewish community’s not agreeing on these issues.”

That’s it. JVP seeks to divide American Jews—Israel’s main foundation of international support—so as to reduce or eliminate U.S. backing for Israel for the benefit of Israel’s enemies.

Undermining Israel ...

JVP is part of the international NGO “soft power” war, whose unrelenting attacks on Israel’s right to self-defense ultimately aid Hamas.

This global political warfare strategy includes sustained delegitimization campaigns, BDS (boycotts, divestment, and sanctions), and promoting a “right of return” for Palestinians, which means dismantling Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.

... every step ...

It partners with a wide coterie of radical leftist, Islamist, and Arab ultra-nationalist groups to promote its program. When asked, JVP states that they are “agnostic” about a two-state solution. But that is a smokescreen. The group’s actions demonstrate a clear anti-Israel agenda. [Emphasis added here and below]

A JVP contingent marched at a July 12 “peace” demonstration in San Francisco, where “anti-war” protesters waved Hamas banners and burned an Israeli flag while chanting in Arabic “Ya Hamas, ya habib, udrub, udrub Tel Abib!” (Oh, dear Hamas, strike a blow at Tel Aviv!) Signs read, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” “From Gaza to Ramallah Forever Intifada,” and “F*** Zionism!” The rally’s advertising demanded an “end to US aid to Israel and to Zionist rule over Palestine.”

... of the way ...

In Los Angeles, JVP teamed up with American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) to “put on a massive die-in street theater.” AMP’s website refers to Hamas as a “Palestinian resistance group.” In Detroit, JVP protested for the release of convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh....

JVP calls the current conflict with Hamas “Israel’s war on civilians”—which follows Hamas PR guidelines to describe “anyone killed or martyred” as “a civilian from Gaza or Palestine.” JVP demands an “end [to] the siege on Gaza,” a central Hamas demand. JVP insists the U.S. “suspend military aid to Israel,” which would also benefit Hamas and other jihadist terrorists. Finally, when JVP supports the call to “Stand Against Zionism Everywhere,” it is clear whose water they are carrying. JVP stands unmasked as anything but a voice for peace.'

Read the entire article (with its links) here

Saturday, 21 May 2011

Arab Spring into Bleak Midwinter

Multifaceted Ben Stein, Yale law graduate, economist, author, Republican presidential speechwriter, and actor - you may remember him as the soporific, monotoned economics teacher in the 1980s teen hit movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off or perhaps as the rabbi reciting kaddish at the end of Torch Song Trilogy - is a hard-headed realist and a stalwart supporter of Israel.

In his droll fashion, Stein draws attention to a key fact that should not be overlooked, namely that the ultimate beneficiary of the so-called "Arab Spring" is likely to be Ahmadinejad's Iran.

"Egypt," Stein points out,

'is now rapidly becoming anti-Israel, pro-Iran, pro the Iranian-sponsored terrorist group Hamas, and very far from being pro-human rights. They are arresting businessmen right and left....

The most potent of the political forces in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, hates the United States, loathes Israel, condemns the killing of bin Laden (whom they praised as a martyr), and have been wedded to terror for their entire existence.

Oh, P.S, they are closely connected with Adolph Hitler.

They will probably take over Egypt completely sooner or later.

As the terrorist government of Syria cracks down on its own people, the U.N. Security Council does exactly nothing about it.'

He continues:

'Has anyone noticed that the common denominator of all the successful Arab street movements is that they are sympathetic to Iran? When the dust settles, Iran is going to own the Middle East - except for maybe Saudi Arabia, if we have the guts to help them (which I very much doubt).

We are going to lose our pals in Bahrain - not nice guys, but pals of the U.S.A. anyway - and we are going to lose our pals in Yemen, and it will possibly have an actual al Qaeda government.

There is a gigantic regional coup by Iran taking place. We are doing very little, if anything, to stop it.

We are going to regret helping the Egyptians kick out Mubarak as much as we regret helping Khomeini force out the Shah.

You can call it "Arab Spring" if you want. But with Iran now the regional superpower, it is a lot more like an extremely bleak Mideast winter.'

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/05/15/sunday/main20063017.shtml#ixzz1Mq8NrACn
(hat tip: Yisrael Medad)

Back in 1979, in an article entitled "Iran & Islam," Chaim Herzog wrote, regarding the events of 1979 that saw the fall of the Shah and the advent to power of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini:

"We are witness today to a very strange and interesting phenomenon which bodes ill for Western society. It is the return to an extreme fanatic form of orthodoxy in Islam .... This extreme religious fanatical movement, covering vast and important areas of the world, couple as it is with a radical form of xenophobia ... bodes ill for the world.

The current developments in the Middle East must also be seen in the context of the Arab attitudes to the minorities living in the Arab world...

The outside world dare not ignore the .developments in the Middle East caused by the rise of extreme fanatical orthodoxy, especially when this is linked to the acquisition of nuclear capabilities....

This sombre picture, with the very dangerous possibilities emerging therefrom, must bring into sharper focus for those concerned with the defence of the West in the Middle East. It's the only stable regime, where the government rules the generals, and not vice versa, where the orderly transfer of powers in a democratically elected parliament is the order of the day, and where a military force of proven quality and ability exists and is prepared to fight for what it believes. It will be essential for many of the Arabists in the U.S. Department of State and the Chancelleries of Western Europe to break away from their prejudices and make a realistic evaluation of the new situation in the Middle East.

The main hinge of Western defence until now was Iran, but it no longer occupies that position.... Political stability ... [is] concentrated today in only one country in the Middle East, namely, Israel....

[A peace treaty] cannot ... be established at the expense of Israel, because on no account should such a process weaken Israel in any way within the global strategy of the area. Israel's importance to the West ... has grown immeasurably as a result of events in Iran....'

(Source: Australia-Israel Review, February 4-28, 1979, pp. 10-12.)

Thirty-two years later, the late President Herzog's words echo with a special resonance ...

I think it was Mark Steyn who, more recently, warned that the impact of the 1979 Iranian Revolution on other countries will eclipse those of the French Revolution in their day.

We'd better start believing it.

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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)

Israel is understandably obsessed with security, but its greatest security lies ultimately not in the Israeli Defence Forces, but in political warfare.... Most of the world is not deeply interested in what happens in Israel, and probably does not want to be deluged with legalistic defences of particular actions. What it wants is a clear, calm, repeated case. It is a case – aimed more at public opinion than at foreign ministries – about freedom, democracy, a Western way of life and the need for the whole of the free world to fight terrorism. Sometimes you hear Israelis say: “It doesn’t matter what we say. The whole world is against us.” You can see why they say it, for they are indeed unfairly treated. But when they say it, they are uttering a self-fulfilling prophecy. If they won’t say what needs saying, no one else will say it for them. Charles Moore (2010)

Once again the armies of the Arab nations are coordinating their military efforts to destroy Israel - whatever they say about wishing merely to regain the lost territories.... [I]f the present Arab offensive had been launched at the pre-1967 frontiers, then the Israelis would indeed have been fighting to avoid annihilation. It seems now that the Israelis were right to maintain the ceasefire lines gained in 1967, and that to do so is the only guarantee of their continued safety.
Alan Sillitoe (The Times, 11 October 1973)

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)

Most of the present Arab countries were given their freedom after the 1914-18 War, or after the 1939-45 War.... Yet to listen to Arab spokesmen one might think that they had been cheated ... because they have not also got Israel. Israel is only .2 per cent of the land where Arab States have been established. Surely no fair-minded man can begrudge the Jews their own promised land when it is remembered that for every 2 acres that went to make up Israel, 1,000 acres became Arab.... Why is there an Arab refugee problem? The oil-rich countries have the money. There is no shortage of land, and the Israelis have the technical knowledge to show how it could be developed and made fertile. Bring those things together and the problem could be solved. 3rd Earl of Balfour (1968)

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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