Posted tagged ‘Israel’

 New Report: 22 Israeli Academics in the Service of BDS

May 26, 2016

New Report: 22 Israeli Academics in the Service of BDS

By: JNi.Media

Published: May 26th, 2016

Source: The Jewish Press » » New Report: 22 Israeli Academics in the Service of BDS

 

In recent years, an increasing number of academics and student organizations throughout the world have been promoting the academic boycott of Israel. The goal of this boycott is to halt the cooperation between Israeli academics and academics abroad, an act that would cause significant harm to Israeli research as it heavily relies on international cooperation. This phenomenon could pose severe implications on the Israeli economy, and would significantly harm Israel’s standing in the world.

A new report from Im Tirtzu reveals the level of involvement of Israeli academics in the encouragement and promotion of the international effort to impose an academic boycott on Israel. The report focuses on the Israeli Anthropological Association as a case study that reflects the significant influence of Israeli academics in promoting the academic boycott on Israel. The report highlights how prominent Israeli professors, who receive salaries provided by the Israeli taxpayer, encourage, legitimize, and often promote boycott efforts, including boycotts that directly harm the institutions in which they work. It is important to note that a 2012 resolution passed by the Israeli Council for Higher Education explicitly rejects boycott efforts:

“The Council for Higher Education views the call for academic boycott on Israel by members of Israel’s institutions of higher education as an undermining action to the foundations of Israel’s higher education system” and thus “calls on institutions to consider the matter, and to formulate ways of dealing with it.”

As stated above, this report focuses on the Israeli Anthropological Association as a case study and examines its involvement with the advancement of the academic boycott on Israel, which began to intensify in 2013 after the American Anthropological Association (AAA) began to discuss the possibility of boycotting Israeli academia.

On May 31, 2016, the 10,000-member AAA will conclude its vote on a proposed resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions, regardless of where the institution is located within Israel.

The Israeli Anthropological Association has sent a letter to the AAA in August 2014 advocating against this anti-Israel initiative and calling it an unprecedented and unjustified act of boycott against Israeli academia. But while the Israeli Anthropological Association was trying to block this attempt to harm the State of Israel, another group of 20 Israeli anthropologists, many of whom teach in publicly funded Israeli institutions, sent a petition to the AAA praising this effort and urging them to continue pressing for an academic boycott on Israel. These professors grant legitimacy to the academic boycott of Israel, and to the BDS movement against Israel as a whole.

In 2015, a task force sent by the AAA to “investigate” the situation in Israel produced a biased report filled with distortions and lies against Israel. The report repeatedly quoted anonymous Israeli academics as a means of attaining legitimacy to the baseless accusations raised in the report. These Israeli academics served as the “voice from within” who “verified” all of the anti-Israel charges in the report.

Several months prior to the publication of the report in July 2015, the Israeli Anthropological Association sent another letter in which they demonstrated a complete capitulation to the amounting boycott pressure. This letter condemned and severely criticized Israel for its prolonged “occupation,” urged Israel to rehabilitate Gaza, and called for a solution for the Palestinian refugees. At the end of the letter, however, they once again urged their colleagues at the AAA to refrain from academic boycott.

Like clockwork, this second letter by the Israeli Anthropological Association was also followed by another letter – this time from a group of 22 “anonymous” Israeli anthropologists – that contained an unequivocal call for academic boycott against Israel:

“We urge all members of the AAA to join in supporting the academic boycott resolution on the spring ballot.”

Im Tirtzu’s report emphasizes that all the Israeli signatories on the first petition sent to the AAA in attempt to foil the Israeli Anthropological Association’s effort to halt the boycott are activists in radical Left organizations, which are backed by copious amounts of foreign political funding and operate within Israel against the state and against the soldiers of the IDF.

In addition, the report notes that most of the Israeli signatories do not currently reside in Israel, and the vast majority of them are directly connected to other foreign agent organizations or to the international BDS movement. These facts substantiate the claim that Israeli organizations and individuals represent the head of the spear of the BDS phenomenon and often produce the initial efforts to boycott Israel.

Im Tirtzu CEO Matan Peleg stressed that the phenomenon in which a radical minority operates from within Israel in order to impose international pressure on Israel is not merely a display of ungratefulness, but an act of shamelessness. The challenge posed by the advancement of boycotts from within forces decision-makers to formulate a fitting response to this phenomenon: “Decision-makers and presidents of Israeli universities look to combat the international BDS movement, but completely ignore the boycott phenomenon from within Israel that is being led by Israeli academics. It is sad to see that those leading the boycott are cutting off the branch on which they are sitting and are working behind the scenes in order to mortally wound the future of Israeli academia.”

Peleg added that “The BDS movement is driven by blind hatred towards the State of Israel and is equipped with tremendous resources. Faced with the consistent attempt to harm the Israeli public, we as citizens need to mobilize against it. The State of Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, and the only country in the region that preserves human and civil rights.”

Peleg stated that “The Im Tirtzu movement will continue to use all the tools at its disposal to fight against this theater of the absurd in which Israeli academics are playing the leading role.”

WATCH: UK Joins Germany And France To Condemn Israel As World’s Only ‘Violator Of Health Rights’

May 26, 2016

WATCH: UK Joins Germany And France To Condemn Israel As World’s Only ‘Violator Of Health Rights’

by Simon Kent

26 May 2016

Source: WATCH: UK Joins Germany And France To Condemn Israel As World’s Only ‘Violator Of Health Rights’

JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty

UN resolution has singled out Israel as the world’s only violator of “mental, physical and environmental health” and commissioned a delegation to report on “the health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory” and in “the occupied Syrian Golan.”

The United Kingdom, France, and Germany were among 107 countries that voted for the proposal during this week’s gathering of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva. Eight countries voted against the resolution and eight abstained, while 58 other countries taking part in the assembly were absent for the vote.

The entire European Union (EU) membership voted as a block to support the motion of condemnation against Israel. Watch video below of the UK casting its vote:

Only the United States, Canada, Australia, Paraguay, Guatemala, Micronesia and Papua New Guinea stood with Israel in opposing the motion that was co-sponsored by the Arab Group of States and the Palestinian delegation.

“The UN reached new heights of absurdity today,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer on Tuesday immediately after the vote.

He then slammed the global body for  “enacting a resolution which accuses Israel of violating the health rights of Syrians in the Golan, even as in reality Israeli hospitals continue their life-saving treatment for Syrians fleeing to the Golan from the Assad regime’s barbaric attacks.”

Mr Nieur added that the motion was more political and religious prosecution than considered policy. He said:

“Shame on Britain, France and Germany for encouraging this hijacking of the annual world health assembly, and diverting precious time, money, and resources from global health priorities, in order to wage a political prosecution of Israel, especially when, in reality, anyone who has ever walked into an Israeli hospital or clinic knows that they are providing world-class health care to thousands of Palestinian Arabs, as well as to Syrians fleeing Assad.

“At the same time UN Watch commends the principled stand taken by the U.S., Canada, Australia, Paraguay, Guatemala, Micronesia and Papua New Guinea in joining Israel to oppose perpetuating a politicized agenda item.”

The U.S. and Canada both took the floor to strongly object to the anti-Israel exercise, UN Watch reports.

The resolution calls for reports on a series of alleged Israeli violations, including on “the impact of prolonged occupation and human rights violations on mental, physical and environmental health” in “the occupied Palestinian territory.”

The text also adopted three reports mandated by last year’s Arab-sponsored resolution: a “field assessment” on “health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory”, a similar report by the WHO director-general, and a related report by the WHO secretariat.

Earlier this month the UN cultural body UNESCO also singled out Israel for condemnation, criticizing it for recent actions on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and declining to acknowledge Jewish ties to the site.

Has the Pope Abandoned Europe to Islam?

May 26, 2016

Has the Pope Abandoned Europe to Islam? Gatestone InstituteGiulio Meotti, May 26, 2016

♦ In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI said what no Pope had ever dared to say — that there is a link between violence and Islam. Ten years later, Pope Francis never calls those responsible for anti-Christian violence by name and never mentions the word “Islam.”

♦ Pope Francis does not even try to re-evangelize or reconquer Europe. He seems deeply to believe that the future of Christianity is in the Philippines, in Brazil and in Africa. Probably for the same reason, the Pope is spending less time and effort in denouncing the terrible fate of Christians in the Middle East.

♦ “Multiculturalism” in Europe is the mosque standing on the ruins of the church. It is not the synthesis requested by Pope Francis. It is the road to becoming extinct.

♦ Asking Europe to be “multicultural” while it experiences a dramatic de-Christianization is extremely risky. In Germany, a new report found that “Germany has become demographically a multi-religious country.” In the UK, a major inquiry recently declared that “Britain is no longer a Christian country.” In France, Islam is also overtaking Christianity as the dominant religion.

To scroll the list of Pope Francis’s apostolic trips — Brazil, South Korea, Albania, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Ecuador, Cuba, United States, Mexico, Kenya, Uganda, Philippines — one could say that Europe is not exactly at the top of his agenda.

The two previous pontiffs both fought for the cradle of Christendom. Pope John Paul II took on Communism by toppling the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain. Benedict XVI took on “the dictatorship of relativism” (the belief that truth is in the eye of the beholder) and bet everything on re-evangelizing the continent by traveling through it (he visited Spain three times) and in speeches such as the magnificent ones at Regensburg, where he spoke bluntly about the threat of Islam, and the German Bundestag, where he warned the gathered politicians against declining religiosity and “sacrificing their own ideals for the sake of power.”

Pope Francis, on the contrary, simply ignores Europe, as if he already considers it lost. This former Argentinian Cardinal, a representative of the “global South” Christianity, made spectacular trips to the migrants’ islands of Lampedusa (Italy) and Lesbos (Greece), but never to the heart of the old continent. Pope Francis has also made it difficult for Anglicans to enter into the Catholic Church, by downplaying the dialogue with them.

Most importantly, however, in his important May 6 speech for the Charlemagne Prize, the Pope, in front of European leaders, castigated Europe on migrants and asked its leaders to be more generous with them. He next introduced something revolutionary into the debate: “The identity of Europe is, and always has been, a multicultural identity,” he said. This idea is questionable.

Multiculturalism is a specific policy formulated in the 1970s. and it was absent from the political vocabulary of Schuman and Adenauer, two of Europe’s founding fathers. Now it has been invoked by the Pope, who spoke of the need for a new synthesis. What is this all about?

Today, Christianity appears marginal and irrelevant in Europe. The religion faces an Islamic demographic and ideological challenge, while the post-Auschwitz remnants of Jewish communities are fleeing from the new anti-Semitism. Under these conditions, a synthesis between the old continent and Islam would be a surrender of Europe’s claim to the future.

“Multiculturalism” is the mosque standing on the ruins of the church. It is not the synthesis requested by the Pope. It is the road to becoming extinct.

Asking Europe to be “multicultural” while it is experiencing a dramatic de-Christianization is also extremely risky. In Germany, a new report just found that “Germany has become demographically a multi-religious country.” In the UK, a major inquiry recently declared that “Britain is no longer a Christian country.” In France, Islam is also overtaking Christianity as the dominant religion. You find the same trend everywhere, from Protestant Scandinavia to Catholic Belgium. That is why Pope Benedict was convinced that Europe needed to “re-evangelized.” Pope Francis does not even try to re-evangelize or reconquer Europe. Instead, he seems deeply to believe that the future of Christianity is in the Philippines, Brazil and Africa.

Probably for the same reason, the Pope is spending less time denouncing the terrible fate of Christians in the Middle East. Sandro Magister, Italy’s most important Vatican observer, sheds light on the Pope’s silences:

“He remained silent on the hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram. He remained silent on the young Sudanese mother Meriam, sentenced to death solely for being Christian and finally liberated by the intervention of others. He remains silent on the Pakistani mother Asia Bibi, who has been on death row for five years, because she too is an ‘infidel’, and [He] does not even reply to the two heartrending letters she has written to him this year, before and after the reconfirmation of the sentence.”

In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI, in his Regensburg lecture, said what no Pope had ever dared to say — that there is a link between violence and Islam. Ten years later, Pope Francis never calls those responsible for anti-Christian violence by name, and never mentions the word “Islam.” Pope Francis also recently recognized the “State of Palestine,” before it even exists — a symbolic and unprecedented first. The Pope also might abandon the Church’s long tradition of a “just war,” one regarded as morally or theologically justifiable. Pope Francis always speaks of the “Europe of peoples,” but never of the “Europe of Nations.” He advocates welcoming migrants and washes their feet, while he ignores that these uncontrolled demographic waves are transforming Europe, bit by bit, into an Islamic state.

1624In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI (left) said what no Pope had ever dared to say — that there is a link between violence and Islam. Ten years later, Pope Francis (right) never calls those responsible for anti-Christian violence by name and never mentions the word “Islam.” (Image source: Benedict: Flickr/Catholic Church of England | Francis: Wikimedia Commons/korea.net)

That is the meaning of Pope Francis’ trips to the islands of Lampedusa, Italy, and Lesbos, Greece — both symbols of a dramatic geographical and civilizational boundary. That is also the meaning of the Pope’s speech for the Charlemagne Prize.

Has the head of Christianity given up on Europe as a Christian place?

8 Iranian missile launches since nuke deal signed, expert tells US Congress

May 26, 2016

8 Iranian missile launches since nuke deal signed, expert tells US Congress Islamic Republic increases ballistic missile tests, strives to improve accuracy, despite American opposition

By Judah Ari Gross

May 26, 2016, 4:29 pm

Source: 8 Iranian missile launches since nuke deal signed, expert tells US Congress | The Times of Israel

But the US state department has more concerns about Liberman than Iranian rockets

An Iranian Shahab-3 missile launched during military exercises outside the city of Qom, Iran, in June 2011. (AP/ISNA/Ruhollah Vahdati)

In the 10 months since the Iran nuclear agreement was signed, the Islamic Republic has increased the frequency of its ballistic missile testing, according to researcher Michael Elleman, who testified before a US senatorial committee this week.

Iran is primarily focused on increasing the accuracy, not the range, of its missiles, Elleman said.

 Elleman, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) think tank, was called to speak Tuesday before the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, which is investigating the effects of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the official name for the Iran nuclear deal signed in July 2015.

Since then, Iran’s ballistic missile program has become a central issue in the debate surrounding the nuclear deal, with opponents of the agreement saying test launches violate the terms of the JCPOA, while proponents argue missile tests are “inconsistent” with United Nations resolutions but not necessarily illegal.

According to the UN decision, “Iran is called upon not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology,” until October 2023.

As they’re only “called upon not to” test missiles, but not expressly forbidden from doing so, Iran has used that loophole to increase its testing with impunity.

“[The US has] engaged in a lot of hue and cry over Iran’s missile capabilities, but they should know that this ballyhoo does not have any influence and they cannot do a damn thing,” Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei said this week.

A Khalij Fars ballistic missile on a transporter during a military parade in Iran. (Iranian military/CC BY-SA 3.0/WikiMedia)

A Khalij Fars ballistic missile on a transporter during a military parade in Iran. (Iranian military/CC BY-SA 3.0/WikiMedia)

According to Elleman, in the almost year following the signing of the agreement and the removal of sanctions, Iran has performed at least eight missile tests — three in 2015 and five thus far in 2016.

In 2005, 2013 and 2014, however, when negotiations for the deal were in full swing, Iran did not perform a single test of a “nuclear-capable missile,” the IISS fellow testified.

After talks fell through in 2005 and before they resumed in 2013, the Islamic Republic “averaged roughly five test launches per year,” according to Elleman.

A missile launched from the Alborz mountains in Iran on March 9, 2016, reportedly inscribed in Hebrew, 'Israel must be wiped out.' (Fars News)

A missile launched from the Alborz mountains in Iran on March 9, 2016, reportedly inscribed in Hebrew, ‘Israel must be wiped out.’ (Fars News)

Though the increase from an average of five to eight missile tests a year seems dramatic — it’s a 60 percent increase, after all — Elleman offered perspective by comparing that to the US and Soviet missile testing programs during the Cold War, which averaged “about one test a week,” or nearly 10 times as many tests per year.

Tactically speaking, ballistic missiles have little value other than as a means of delivering a nuclear warhead, Elleman pointed out.

In May, an Iranian official claimed the country had tested a missile capable of reaching Israel, which had almost unheard-of accuracy for Iran.

“We test-fired a missile with a range of 2,000 kilometers and a margin of error of eight meters,” Brigadier General Ali Abdollahi was quoted as saying at a Tehran science conference.

However, this was swiftly denied by the Iranian defense minister on the same day.

“We’re still trying to get to the bottom of what exactly transpired,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at a press briefing.

“We are aware of Iranian claims of an additional ballistic missile launch. We’re also aware of statements from the defense minister indicating that such a launch did not take place,” he said.

Accuracy over range

Whether or not the test took place, the emphasis on the rocket’s margin of error points to a renewed focus on the accuracy of Iran’s existing arsenal of missiles, rather than on the development of farther-reaching projectiles.

“Iran seeks to improve the accuracy of its missiles, a priority that supersedes the need to develop longer-range missiles,” Elleman told the Senate committee on Tuesday. “Iran has repeated said that it does not need missiles with a range of greater than 2,000 kilometers, or 1,200 miles.”

At that range, Iran could easily reach any target within Israel, which is just under 1,000 miles away.

A military exhibition displays the Shahab-3 missile under a picture of the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran, in 2008 (photo credit: AP/Hasan Sarbakhshian)

A military exhibition displays the Shahab-3 missile under a picture of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran, in 2008. (AP/Hasan Sarbakhshian)

At this point in time, however, Iran’s missile technology is far from accurate enough to reliably hit a predetermined target, and changing that will not be easy or quick, Elleman said.

“Substantial improvements in missile accuracy will take years, if not a decade, to materialize,” he said.

As with so many things, he most important aspects of a military attack are location, location, location. A missile — even a nuclear-tipped missile — landing in the Arava desert would have an incomparably lesser effect than a missile landing on, say, Dizengoff Center in Tel Aviv.

“Iran’s ballistic missiles have poor accuracy. The successful destruction of a single fixed military target, for example, would probably require Iran to use a significant percentage of its missile inventory,” Elleman told the Senate committee.

Illustrative photo of a Fateh-110 ballistic missile, taken at an Iranian armed forces parade in 2012. (military.ir/Wikimedia Commons)

Illustrative photo of a Fateh-110 ballistic missile, taken at an Iranian armed forces parade in 2012. (military.ir/Wikimedia Commons)

That inventory consists of over 300 missiles considered “nuclear-capable,” according to the international Missile Technology Control Regime monitoring association, which defines it as any missile capable of delivering a 1,100 pound (500 kg) warhead a distance of 186 miles (300 km), Elleman said.

Slow progress on ICBM technology

In terms of increasing the range of its ballistic missiles, the senior researcher said Iran has not made great strides in that effort.

“I have seen no evidence to suggest that Iran is actively developing an intermediate- or intercontinental-range ballistic missile (IRBM or ICBM, respectively),” Elleman said, but he added, “I cannot speak to a covert program.”

The most recent test that could be related to ICBMs appears to have been the launch of the Simorgh rocket, which is believed to have been conducted last month. US and Iranian officials have not publicly acknowledged the test, though Russian revealed that the launch popped up on one of their radar stations.

Iranians take photos of the Simorgh satellite rocket during celebrations to mark the 37th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, in Teheran, February 11, 2016. (AFP/Atta Kenare)

Iranians take photos of the Simorgh satellite rocket during celebrations to mark the 37th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, in Teheran, February 11, 2016. (AFP/Atta Kenare)

The Simorgh rocket is designed to launch satellites into space. However, Elleman told the Senate committee, “Without question, rockets designed to boost a satellite into orbit and long-range ballistic missiles employ many of the same technologies, key components, and operational features.”

But it’s not likely that the Simorgh itself would be used as a weapon because of the considerable effort that would be required to convert it into a reliable ICBM. Rather, the information gleaned from the space rocket would be applied to create a new type of missile, Elleman said.

“Iran’s ambitious space program provides engineers with critical experience developing powerful booster rockets and other skills that could be used in developing longer-range missiles, including ICBMs,” he said.

The production of those long-range missiles, which would be capable of striking the United States, is still years away, assuming Iran continues on its current course.

According to Admiral William Gortney of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, Iran is anticipated to have an operational intercontinental ballistic missile by the year 2020.

Michael Elleman, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies think-tank. (Screen capture: C-Span)

Michael Elleman, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank. (Screen capture: C-Span)

Meanwhile, Elleman, who has interviewed Russian and Ukrainian scientists who worked in the Iranian missile program, estimated the Islamic Republic would not be able to produce an operational ICBM until “2022, at the earliest.”

In his testimony, the senior IISS researcher also discussed an interesting piece of modern history, namely that Israel is partially responsbile for the Iranian missile defense program, which was created before the 1979 revolution when the two countries were still allies.

“Ironically, the shah teamed with Israel to develop a short-range system after Washington denied his request for Lance missiles,” Elleman said.

“Known as Project Flower, Iran supplied the funds and Israel provided the technology. The monarchy also pursued nuclear technologies, suggesting an interest in a delivery system for nuclear weapons,” he said.

State Dept. Says Liberman Appointment ‘Raises Legitimate Questions’ About Direction of Israeli Govt

May 26, 2016

The US is less that pleased that Israel’s new defense minister will be Yisrael Beytenu’s Avigdor Liberman, making the expanded coalition stronger on the right.

By: Hana Levi Julian

Published: May 26th, 2016

Source: The Jewish Press » » State Dept. Says Liberman Appointment ‘Raises Legitimate Questions’ About Direction of Israeli Govt

Yisrael Beytenu party chairman Avigdor Liberman
Photo Credit: Screenshot

The U.S. is not happy about the appointment of Israel’s new defense minister, Yisrael Beytenu party chairman Avigdor Liberman, to the coalition government. This became patently obvious at Wednesday State Department briefing (May 25, 2016) in Washington DC after a long round of questions on other topics — most of them about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s misdeeds during her tenure as Secretary of State — when the session was nearly over. There were just a few minutes left, said State Department spokesperson Mark Toner, who seemed almost to be waiting for someone — anyone — to ask the question.

And then finally, the very last one, squeezed in at the final second, a reporter managed to deliver the perfect pitch over home plate. Following is the question — clearly a softball — tossed to the harried spokesperson, who practically leaped to answer it, and his response.

Q: I know it’s like the fifth day in a row, but at least it’s now formally been announced that Avigdor Lieberman is to be Israel’s defense minister. Do you have any comment on the new Israeli government and his appointment to that job in particular?

Mr. Toner: I do. We have seen reports an agreement’s been reached to expand the coalition.

“We’ve also seen reports from Israel describing it as the most right-wing coalition in Israel’s history. And we also know that many of its ministers have said they opposed a two-state solution.

“This raises legitimate questions about the direction it may be headed in – headed in, rather – and what kind of policies it may adopt, but ultimately we’re going to judge this government based on its actions.

“We’re going to work with this government as we have with every Israeli government that preceded it, with the goal of strengthening our cooperation, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to the security of Israel, and in our commitment to working towards a two-state solution.”

‘F**k Israel, long live the Intifada’ frenzied mob screams at Jewish University of California Irvine student

May 26, 2016

‘F**k Israel, long live the Intifada’ frenzied mob screams at Jewish University of California Irvine student

By Pamela Geller on May 26, 2016

Source: ‘F**k Israel, long live the Intifada’ frenzied mob screams at Jewish University of California Irvine student | Pamela Geller

It’s getting to be open season on Jewish students on our nation’s campuses. Why aren’t administrators acting against these neo-Nazis? Because they’re leftists and Muslims — two protected classes.

“‘F**k Israel, long live the Intifada’ angry mob screams at Jewish UC student,” by Hannah Broad, Jerusalem Post, May 22, 2016:

Second-year Eliana Kopley was attempting to enter the showing of the Israeli documentary “Beneath the Helmet” about the IDF when a crowd of protesters physically obstructed her.

An angry anti-Israel mob at the University of California at Irvine chased a Jewish student into a building while chanting anti-Semitic epithets after she tried to attend a campus screening of an Israeli documentary last Wednesday, the Observer reported.

Second-year Eliana Kopley was attempting to enter the showing of the Israeli documentary “Beneath the Helmet” about the IDF when a crowd of protesters physically obstructed her and chased her into an adjacent building.

The angry mob proceeded to pound intimidatingly on the windows and doors while shouting “Long live the Intifada!” and “F**k Israel!”

Kopley called the police, who escorted her safely into the film screening amidst the angry rhetoric of the activists. In spite of arriving safely to the event, Kopley was overwhelmed by the trauma of the incident and became emotional.

In contrast to the Kopley’s response to the irate horde of protesters, the UC Irvine campus group Students for Justice in Palestine lauded the mob’s behavior and labeled their intimidation techniques a success.

Academic centers across the United States have seen an uptick in increasingly vehement anti-Israel sentiment, particularly in California.

In 2015, more than 30 organizations, including Jewish fraternity AEPI, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Zionist Organization of America wrote to University of California regent Bruce D. Varner in July, requesting that substantive measures be taken to combat rising anti-Semitism on UC-affiliated campuses….

Canada Home to Islamic Radicals

May 25, 2016

Canada Home to Islamic RadicalsThe Toronto Sun via Middle East Forum, Tarek Fatah, May 24, 2016

2683

In November 2014, while testifying before the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, I raised the issue of Islamic clerics using mosque sermons to attack the foundational principles of Western civilization and liberal secular democracy.

Liberal Senator Grant Mitchell was outraged by my testimony that at most Canadian mosques, the Friday congregation includes a ritual prayer asking, “Allah to give victory to Muslims over the ‘Kufaar’ (non-Muslims).” In a heated exchange with me, the senator suggested I wasn’t telling the truth, implying I was motivated by Islamophobia. Sadly, Sen. Mitchell is not alone in such views.

But neither is there any let-up in the attacks on Canadian values emanating from many mosque pulpits and Islamic conferences hosted by radical Islamist groups.

For example, in a sermon on Friday, May 6, delivered at a mosque in Edmonton, an imam invoked the memory of Prophet Muhammad to whip up hatred against Israel. He declared peace accords with Israel are “useless garbage” and vowed that Jerusalem will be conquered “through blood.”

In February, the same cleric predicted Islam would soon conquer Rome, “the heart of the Christian state.”

The Edmonton mosque diatribe was not isolated.

On May 13, just north of Toronto, an Islamic society hosted a celebration of Iranian mass murderer, Ayatollah Khomeini. The poster promoting the event described Khomeini as a, “Liberator and Reformer of the Masses.”

On Saturday, the Islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir, banned in some countries, hosted a conference to discuss the re-establishment of a global Islamic caliphate.

Pakistan-Canadian writer Tahir Gora went to cover the event, but was barred from entering the hall. “They said this was a closed door, in-camera meeting for our supporters,” Gora told me after he was asked to leave.

2684A speaker addresses the Hizb-ut-Tahrir conference in Mississauga, Ontario, on May 21.

Fortunately, one Palestinian-Canadian woman was able to enter the event.

She shared with me some of the proceedings from inside the gathering. “I walked into the banquet hall with approximately 100 attendees who were gender segregated. I sat next to a woman who said she had been in Canada for 40 years.” When I asked her if she felt any disconnect between enjoying 40 years of democracy, yet supporting the Hizb-ut-Tahrir who wanted to end it, she explained that democracy has done nothing good to people, so she and other believers follow Allah’s rule.

“The first speaker reminded Muslims that they are obligated to implement Allah’s orders that fulfil the Islamic State. It is “not permissible for us to choose’ he said, citing the Quran. However, he said it was necessary to win the public’s hearts and minds; and to partner with people of power, citing examples from the life of the Prophet.”

“At the end, a three-minute video was presented to demonstrate the collective oil and natural gas production capabilities of the Muslim world, the human capital needed to mine and process these resources … the military power required to protect them and the types of weapons needed to make such a military effective.”

While this was unfolding we received news that the Trudeau government, as part of its infrastructure development program, had authorised a $200,000 grant to a southern Ontario mosque with links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Which begs the question: Who’s minding the store?

Anti-Israel Socialists Chosen to Write Official Democratic Party Platform

May 25, 2016

Anti-Israel Socialists Chosen to Write Official Democratic Party Platform, PJ MediaRon Radosh, May 24, 2016

Israel_-_Boycott_divest_sanction.sized-770x415xt

Bernie Sanders’ goal is to transform the Democratic Party, which is already a European style social-democratic party, into a full-fledged vehicle for socialism.

This is why he is still campaigning.

Even though Sanders knows Hillary Clinton will be the nominee, he is not giving up until the end. He is fighting for one reason: so his socialist supporters get to play a major role in formulating the Democratic Party’s platform for the 2016 general campaign and beyond. Now, with the announcement of those appointed by both Sanders and Clinton to the important platform committee of the Democratic Party, we already can see his influence.

Worried about keeping the support of Bernie’s people after her nomination is wrapped up, Clinton is being forced to tilt further to the left than she would like, making it much harder for her to shift back to the center in the general election campaign. A move to the center is necessary if she is to win the support of centrists, moderates, and independents. However, Bernie’s pressure has successfully gotten her to cave to his demands for a left-wing platform.

Let’s examine some of the five people Bernie Sanders has gotten appointed to the platform committee. What stands out?

First, their well-known animosity to Israel and support of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank — and also, yes, of Hamas in Gaza.

Cornel West

The most prominent name among the five is the professor and radical black activist Cornel West. West has toured with Sanders and opened up rallies for him. West is a leading BDS activist.

He has said that the Gaza Strip is “the ‘hood on steroids.” In 2014, he wrote that the crimes of Hamas “pale in the face of the U.S. supported Israeli slaughters of innocent civilians.”

Like Sanders, West has long considered himself a democratic socialist, and has in the past worked with Dissent magazine and the late Michael Harrington’s Democratic Socialists of America.

James Zogby

The next prominent person appointed by Sanders to the committee is James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute. As co-chair of the Democratic resolution committee, Zogby now has a direct hand in drafting the actual party platform.

In 1996, Zogby’s group sponsored a rally at which protesters held signs saying:

[Israeli Prime Minister Shimon] Peres and Hitler are the Same — The Only Difference is the Name.

In 2011, Zogby said the Palestinians are suffering their own “Holocaust.” Like West, Zogby supports the BDS movement, which he calls “a legitimate and moral response to Israeli policy” and to Israel’s “bullying tactics.”

Zogby told the Washington Post that his aim is to draft a platform that meets the needs of both Palestinians and Israelis, but from his own work it is most clear he is an enemy of the current Israeli government. He is also a fierce critic of the mainstream view about which group in the Middle East is responsible for the failure of peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis over the past few decades.

Keith Ellison

Sanders also picked Rep. Keith Ellison. The only Muslim in Congress, Ellison is a major critic of Israel and will undoubtedly stand with Zogby and West. All three will work — probably successfully — to implement a strong anti-Israel stance in the official Democratic Party platform.

How will Clinton — who has recently attempted to portray herself as opposed to BDS and as a strong supporter of Israel — choose to deal with this?

Will she make a tactical judgment about votes rather than a moral judgment?

On domestic policy, all of the platform committee members will favor leftist economic and political measures. Perhaps the only disagreement will be over backing Hillary’s more modest health care proposals vs. Sanders’ demand for fully state-run socialized medicine.

Clinton’s choices for the platform committee also reflect how she has been pulled towards socialist positions to satisfy Sanders’ supporters.

Wendy Sherman, a former deputy secretary of State, was a lead negotiator in the Iran nuclear talks; recall the Obama administration maneuvered to prevent Congress from voting on the agreement.

Neera Tanden is president of the Center for American Progress — a pro-Clinton think tank that has sought to create dialogue between Israel and the American “progressive” community.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, current head of the Democratic National Committee, was allowed to select four members of the 15-member platform committee. Note that Sanders attacked her for supporting Clinton throughout the primary process, which is perhaps why her selections are also quite revealing.

Wasserman Schultz appointed Maryland’s Rep. Elijah Cummings as the committee’s chairman.

Cummings fiercely defended Obama’s Iran deal, often getting into arguments with Republicans while it was discussed in congressional committees on which he sits.

Cummings does happen to represent a district with a large Jewish population. So he “supports” Israel to the extent one can do so while favoring the Iran deal, and he is involved in a program that sends African American high school students from Baltimore to Israel.

Rep. Howard Berman of California is a legitimate pro-Israel legislator. He supported sanctions against Iran in 2010 when he was chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

To balance these two (plus one other pro-Israel member), Wasserman Schultz also appointed the far-left Rep. Barbara Lee of California. Lee stands out as perhaps the only elected representative further to the left than Bernie Sanders.

Lee once was a chief aide to a leftist congressman from Oakland, Ca., Ron Dellums. Lee joined 59 other House members in signing a letter following the 2009 Gaza war that urged the Obama administration to pressure Israel to allow more aid to Gaza. She spoke — along with Ellison —against a resolution condemning the 2009 UN report on the Gaza war. That resolution was supported by the Israeli government and the mainstream of the American pro-Israel community.

Lee, along with Cummings, Ellison, and Rep. Luis Gutierrez — a Clinton appointee to the Committee — have all been endorsed by the political affiliate of the left-wing J Street. That group, as we fully know, has been leading the opposition to sanctions against Iran and has lobbied strenuously amongst the American Jewish community to gain support for the Iran deal.

In April of 2009, journalist Mark Hemingway wrote an article about her appropriately titled “Comrade Barbara.” He revealed Lee to be a supporter of Fidel Castro:

[Lee is] still in the thrall of just about every discredited personality and idea the Left has produced in the last 50 years, and utterly convinced of her own righteousness.

Lee was a good friend of the late thug and leader of the Black Panther Party, Huey Newton, who escaped to Cuba for three years to dodge trial on various charges. Of Newton, who murdered opponents and made a living dealing drugs in the ghetto in Oakland, Lee wrote in her biography that “despite his roughness, my mother really liked him.”

Instead of acknowledging that the Panthers had become a full-fledged criminal organization, Lee argued that anything “bad” the Panthers did was the fault of the FBI, which actually carried out the measures which they blamed on the Panthers.

Perhaps the most egregious action Lee took came during Ronald Reagan’s presidency over the island of Grenada. Until the military intervention carried out by Reagan, Grenada was in the hands of a tyrannical Marxist-Leninist regime. It was negotiating for a new extension of an airfield so that the island could be used by Soviet jets in order for the USSR to get a military presence in the Caribbean.

After the collapse of the communist regime, the “Grenada papers” were published. They included correspondence between Lee and the island’s rulers in which she advised them on how to issue reports on the airfield to make it appear that it was not being built for military use.

In one letter, Lee wrote of Rep. Dellums:

[Dellums is] really hooked on you and Grenada and doesn’t want anything to happen to building the Revo[lution] and making it strong.

Hemingway concludes his article with this:

Perhaps the reason Lee has made dozens of trips to Cuba is that outside of her Berkeley congressional district, the oppressive Communist dictatorship is the closest place to home where she can be said to speak for anybody.

Perhaps Wasserman Schultz believes that Lee’s appointment will soften Bernie Sanders’ disdain for her. However, she has given Sanders yet one more ally who will undoubtedly support all of his far-left, socialist suggestions for the forthcoming platform.

Hillary Clinton’s negatives are now slightly below those of Donald Trump. The forthcoming far-left platform might satisfy Bernie Sanders’ deluded young followers, but will assure a further loss of support for the Democrats from centrists and independents.

Worrying about Israel’s “moral compass”

May 25, 2016

Worrying about Israel’s “moral compass” | Anne’s Opinions, 25th May 2016

Ever since Deputy Chief of Staff Gen. Yair Golan warned Israel against becoming “morally corrupt”, and newly-resigned Defence Minister Moshe “Bogie” Yaalon expressed dismay at Israel’s loss of its moral compass, the world has been equally watching us with bated breath, looking for signs of imminent Nazism and racism to appear in Israeli society.

For the BBC of course this was manna from Heaven. BBC Watch reports on the BBC’s “World Have Your Say” radio program where they wondered aloud at this very moral compass that Israel looks set to lose. As you might expect, there was no such pondering about other, much more violent countries:

… However, BBC audiences have not been invited to ponder the question of whether the citizens of Austria (or America, Hungary, France, Switzerland, Finland or Denmark) have lost their moral compass en masse.

That question was posed –literally – in relation to a country which the BBC has long portrayed as ‘lurching’ to the right of the political map – regardless of the inaccuracy of that framing.

The May 20th edition of the BBC World Service radio programme ‘World Have Your Say’ (titled “Has Israel Lost its ‘Moral Compass’?“, from 00:48) based its discussion around the resignation of Israel’s Minister of Defence on the same day and presenter Anu Anand was joined by four telephone interviewees.

Towards the end of the item, as Gregg Roman [Director of the Middle East Forum – Ed.] tried to provide listeners with insights into the Israeli political scene, Anand interrupted and refocused the discussion on the programme’s real topic:

“But can I just move you guys back to the…the….you know, the talk about how Israel is losing its values. I do understand there are heavy politics involved, but perhaps for a global audience…”

The BBC of course is not the only media outlet shedding crocodile tears for Israel’s worrying morality though they are a leading influence. As one reads media articles, social media posts, talkbacks on articles, or watches and hears TV and radio programs, the effect on the average Israeli is suffocating and infuriating.

A golden oldie but as relevant as ever

I am therefore very thankful that I came across Vic Rosenthal’s (aka Abu Yehuda) excellent two-part series on this very subject which should be required reading for all pro-Israel advocates.

In part I of Adjusting the Moral Compass he describes the origin of this discussion on morality, which was the incident of the IDF soldier Elor Azaria who shot dead an (apparently) incapacitated terrorist after a knife attack. He then places this discussion of morality into a historical context and also locates where Israel sits on the world stage:

On the one side, we have the primarily secular academic, cultural, military, legal and media elites, mostly Ashkenazim whose families have been in Israel for generations, who have become increasingly vocal, even frantic, about what they call ‘undemocratic’, ‘racist’, ‘ultra-nationalist’, ‘fascist’ and ‘theocratic’ trends in society.On the other side – now a majority – are found many religious Israelis and those of Mizrachi or Soviet origin, who believe that the elites are anti-Zionist, self-hating, bigoted against religious people and ignorant about the true nature of our enemies.

Both sides believe that the other, if not reined in, will destroy the state.

The real issue is the degree to which our moral system should be universal or tribal.

Universalism, the belief that we are obligated to treat all human beings alike regardless of who they are has reached its apogee in Europe and the US, where no crime is more detested than ‘racism’.

Universalist ethics are opposed to tribalism, which prioritizes one’s own tribe, religious group or nation. There was no Enlightenment in the Islamic world, and Middle Eastern cultures are still highly tribalistic; so much so that attempts to create modern states while ignoring ethnic, religious and tribal realities have been (e.g., Syria and Lebanon) spectacular failures. One way to characterize the moral system of a culture is by where it falls on the universalism-tribalism axis.

Former Israeli Supreme Court Chief Justice Aharon Barak tried to force Israel into the mold of a European or American “state of its citizens.” In the name of democracy, the Court opposed attempts to maintain a special status for Jews or Judaism. Foreign interests like the American New Israel Fund and the Union for Reform Judaism, as well as European-financed NGOs support this universalist vision, even to the point of calling for changes in our flag and national anthem because they don’t speak to our Arab citizens.

Of course they don’t. Why should they, in a Jewish state?

The environment is changing and the cultural organism must change too, if it is to adapt to it. In our new environment, a strongly universalist morality is not an advantage; it constitutes unilateral moral disarmament. Our state won’t survive as a copy of the US or Sweden (indeed, the pressures are such that neither the US nor Sweden may survive in their present form).

That doesn’t mean that we need to give up democratic government or adopt all the cultural practices of our neighbors, like their misogyny, religious coercion, or beheadings and barrel bombs. It doesn’t imply that we ought to view ourselves as superior to non-Jews or that we should deny non-Jews that live among us their civil rights.

What it does mean is that our objective should be a state that unashamedly prioritizes Jewish people, culture, religion and values.

In Part II Vic speaks of the consequences of moral equivalence, of applying a universalist belief to an area where tribalism rules:

The psychological consequences of our European-style ‘fairness’ on our tribal enemies are also counterproductive. They understand our ‘goodness’ as weakness, and take maximum advantage of it. It does not make them admire us or wish for peace; rather, it generates contempt and encourages them to continue using violent tactics.

What is true of our rules for warfare and counterterrorism also applies to our public diplomacy and other areas. Our leaders express an understanding of the supposed Palestinian need for a state and desire to sit down with them and negotiate a peace deal, while the Arabs publish maps on which Israel does not appear and educate their children to love martyrdom above all. We provide surgery in our best hospitals to the relatives of leaders of Hamas and the PLO, while they encourage their people to pick up a knife and stab a Jew.

One of the implications of a universalist morality is that there is no such thing as an enemy in the traditional sense. If anyone should be considered an enemy it would be the leaders of Hamas and the PLO; yet our doctors save the lives of their relatives. In this view even terrorists have rights, and the people of Gaza and the Arabs of Judea and Samaria shouldn’t be punished collectively for what their leaders do. After all, everyone is an individual and everyone has human rights.

Israelis have taken this European approach even further. Because of our (historically inappropriate) guilt complex toward the Palestinians, we might say that “everyone has human rights especially the Palestinians.”

But what if we realign our moral system to see the conflict in tribal terms?

This is war and the Palestinians are the enemy. Who speaks like this in Israel today?

You don’t supply water, electricity, food and cement to an enemy population, especially one which has no desire to overthrow its leadership. And the Palestinians, both in Gaza and Judea/Samaria have defined themselves as an enemy, by their choice of leaders, by what they teach in their schools and say in their official and social media, and in their popular support and enthusiastic participation in terrorism against Jews.

Collective punishment? Of course they should be punished collectively, because their guilt as an aggressor is collective.

Now before anyone gets outraged at the politically incorrect but (in my opinion) morally correct assertiveness expressed by Vic Rosenthal, let us just remind ourselves of a very similar instance that happened just last week – in New York. A knife-wielding man was shot dead – and guess what? There was no UN resolution or condemnation of New York cops, there were no editorials or programs on the BBC expressing hypocritical concern at the morality of the US. It was taken as a given that an armed man will be shot dead. As the Algemeiner reports on the “disproportionate response to the New York attacker“:

“Knife-wielding man shot dead in midtown Manhattan” was the headline making the rounds on the Internet last week. The man with the knife had not shouted “Allahu Akbar,” nor was he attempting to commit a terror attack. He was simply an apparently inebriated individual, identified as Gary Conrad, who went into a Food Emporium, where he allegedly became “aggressive and belligerent.”

According to NYPD Chief of Department James O’Neill, “He was swearing at the people in the store, swearing at the workers in the store.” Swearing, imagine that. What a lethal menace!

A police officer called to the scene began struggling with Conrad, who pulled out a knife. Police officers ordered him to drop the knife, but he continued to approach them with the knife in his hand. At that point, O’Neill said, an officer and a sergeant opened fire on Conrad.

They did not shoot him once. They did not merely aim to neutralize him by shooting him in the legs or his arms. They shot him an incredible nine times. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Had this taken place in Israel, and had this man not been called Gary Conrad, but Mohammed, and had he not been merely an inebriated loon but a terrorist out to slash Jews, international outrage would have poured forth in torrents from the front page of every single news outlet and the mouth of every opinion maker worth his salt. The “disproportionate force” claim would have been thrown about and every self-respecting journalist would have asked why Israel had to kill the man — shooting him no fewer than nine times — instead of simply neutralizing him by shooting him in the legs or the arms and then taking him to hospital.

So far, not a single news report has questioned the judgment of the NYPD. No American liberal has come forth in self-righteous indignation, asking whether killing this man, who, after all, was not threatening to blow up the Food Emporium or stab anyone, may have been slightly on the disproportionate side.

Let us stop beating ourselves about the head and bewailing our loss or lack of morality, and instead we should be proud of just how well Israel and Israelis comport themselves while under the most extreme threat of constant attack and annihilation. We compare well not just in comparison to our degenerate neighbours, but compared to every Western country on earth.

Of course there is always room for improvement, and we cannot sit back and think we are saints, but nevertheless we have much to be proud of in our democracy, our enlightenment and yes, our morality.

Update: Lawrence in the comments provides us with another excellent link: Why some Jews are afraid of their inner-Nazi. It expresses similar sentiments to Abu Yehuda in a more concise manner. Go and read!

French Political Gymnastics and How to Help the Palestinians

May 23, 2016

French Political Gymnastics and How to Help the Palestinians, Gatestone InstituteShoshana Bryen, May 23, 2016

“I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror. I call upon them to build a practicing democracy, based on tolerance and liberty. If the Palestinian people meet these goals, they will be able to reach agreements with Israel, Egypt and Jordan on security and other arrangements for independence.” — President George W. Bush, 2002.

The Palestinians do not have “a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty,” but erasing Israel evidently remains their goal.

Rather than offering the Palestinians no-cost recognition, the French should demand a few changes first.

The French government seems to be falling over itself to undo its craven vote in favor of a UNESCO resolution accusing Israel — referred to as the “Occupying Power” in Jerusalem — of destroying historic structures on the Temple Mount:

  • Prime Minister Manuel Valls apologized. “This UNESCO resolution contains unfortunate, clumsy wording that offends and unquestionably should have been avoided, as should the vote.”
  • Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve apologized. [I do] “not take a supportive view of the text.” The resolution “should not have been adopted” and “was not written as it should have been.”
  • President François Hollande apologized. [The vote was] “unfortunate,” and, “I would like to guarantee that the French position on the question of Jerusalem has not changed… I also wish to reiterate France’s commitment to the status quo in the holy places in Jerusalem… As per my request, the foreign minister will personally and closely follow the details of the next decision on this subject. France will not sign a text that will distance her from the same principles I mentioned.”
  • Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault did not quite apologize: “France has no vested interest but is deeply convinced that if we do not want to let the ideas of the Islamic State group prosper in this region, we must do something.”

It sounds as if they thought they had made a mistake. But the vote was not a mistake. Underestimating the depth of Israel’s anger about it might have been a mistake, but not the vote. The French — who, according to their foreign minister, have “no vested interest” but need to “do something” about Islamic State — could not have thought that a UNESCO resolution that offended Israel would do anything to slow ISIS “in the region” or in Europe. There is no way it could; the two are not connected.

The French however, apparently thought a vote accusing Israel of something, anything, would keep the Palestinian Authority from presenting a resolution on Palestinian independence to the UN Security Council; Ayrault implied in Israel that the UNESCO vote was a quid pro quo. Why? The French have a veto they could exercise in the UN Security Council. But the Palestinians might then object to France replacing the U.S. as the “Great Power” in the “peace process.” They already have experience with a veto-wielding interlocutor — the U.S. — and they do not want another. The price of an elevated status for the French appears to entail not vetoing Palestinian resolutions, voting for them in UNESCO, and sacrificing Israel in a process that will end in French recognition of a Palestinian State, whether Israel agrees to be bound to the altar or not.

1614French President François Hollande welcomes Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Paris, July 8, 2012. (Image source: Office of the President of France)

It should be noted that the Russians immediately put out a statement that the UN-sponsored Middle East Quartet is the “only mechanism” for resolving the Palestinian issue. It is not clear whether Putin was supporting American or Israeli interests. Iran and ISIS are similarly disinclined to see the French ascend on this issue.

The Palestinians, on the other hand, are thrilled to have an international conference where others will make demands of Israel as the Palestinian experiment in self-government degenerates into poverty and chaos by its own economic, political and social choices, looking more like Venezuela every day.

For Palestinians in the street, killing Jews in the “knife intifada” did not take the edge off the popular anger and frustration with their own leadership.

Under the circumstances, the French, and France’s enabler, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, might usefully consider the approach taken in fact by President George W. Bush, which required changes in Palestinian behavior as a prerequisite for support for statehood. Honored mainly in the breach, Bush’s 2002 speech nevertheless remains the best statement of American, and Western, interest in moving the Palestinians toward a functioning state:

It is untenable for Israeli citizens to live in terror. It is untenable for Palestinians to live in squalor and occupation. And the current situation offers no prospect that life will improve. Israeli citizens will continue to be victimized by terrorists, and so Israel will continue to defend herself…

Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership, so that a Palestinian state can be born.

I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror. I call upon them to build a practicing democracy, based on tolerance and liberty. If the Palestinian people meet these goals, they will be able to reach agreements with Israel, Egypt and Jordan on security and other arrangements for independence.

And when the Palestinian people have new leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements with their neighbors, the United States of America will support the creation of a Palestinian state whose borders and certain aspects of its sovereignty will be provisional until resolved as part of a final settlement in the Middle East.

I wrote at the time that,

“Mr. Bush made one huge leap of faith in the speech when he said, ‘I’ve got confidence in the Palestinians. When they fully understand what we’re saying, that they’ll make the right decisions when we get down the road for peace.’ What, in fact, will the U.S. do if the Palestinian people weigh a new constitution and free political parties and STILL decide that blowing up Jews is better? What if they have transparent government, economic advancement and an independent judiciary, and STILL decide Jewish sovereignty must be eradicated with the blood of their children?”

The Palestinians have answered half the question. They do not have a “practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty,” but erasing Israel evidently remains their goal. Rather than offering no-cost recognition, the French should demand a few changes first.