President Obama and Language Neutrality

I suppose it was inevitable that the election of President Obama to the highest office in the US would remain framed by his color.  As a candidate, Barack Obama said that Americans must “reckon with race and with America’s original sin, slavery”. Except that America’s original sin was not slavery but its mistreatment of its indigenous native-Americans. If invisibility is a crime then Barack Obama contributed to that crime through his omission and through his historical inaccuracy.   The truth would not have made him less of a national leader even if it meant that he had to frame the debate around justice rather than race.

If we ignore the occasional ‘mistake,’ President Obama has barely mentioned race during either of his terms as President.  There are those activists who decry this course of inaction as a wasted opportunity to help to ‘rebalance the scales’.  But others say that it is sufficient that he is before the  public eye every single day and it is his presence as President and Commander in Chief of the Armed forces that encourages people across America to ‘be comfortable  with’ a different aspect of American society and therefore his presence alone, encourages acceptance.

On those few occasions when President Obama did mention race (such as in the case of the death of Trayvon Martin) it caused a national controversy that brought raw feelings of prejudice back into the foreground and reanimated a racially uncomfortable America.  As a president whose skin color is not white he has had to be better, purer, and more holy than his white colleagues. In fact, in some respects it is just like being a Jew! Although in America, Jews have been able to revel in the occasional notoriety of their coreligionists.  African Americans have not yet arrived at that particularly dubious point of self-acceptance in their battle for integration.  I am not going to get into any arguments about his mixed race background because like Jews under any fascist regime playing a percentage game and defining the Blackness or Jewishness of a person only plays into the racists hands.

The US President may indeed be incompetent; his foreign policy failures are legendary.  I cannot recall another President whose record of failures was as long and as ignoble.  His domestic challenges seem to have been no less and yet not significantly greater than Presidents that preceded him but instead he has suffered one failure after another and while his opponents have been in disarray throughout his one and a half terms of office he has failed to exploit the Republican Party’s chaos.    His presidency has seen cuts to Social Security and Healthcare reform that divided the nation; as a Democrat he has failed to reduce unemployment or poverty.  By many of his one time supporters Obama is viewed as a neo-con who has inflated government secrecy while assaulting one of the golden calves of the American self-image, civil liberties. By those on the opposite aisle he is viewed as a socialist threat to American values. Their constant attack on one of his few policy successes, the establishment universal health care, has made it impossible to dispassionately address the real budget and entitlement challenges that America has.

But this is not the problem that I am addressing here.  President Obama is the first Black (African American) President of the United States of America. His race may have molded his character but it did not shape his ability to form judgments nor did it create his intellect. As President, Obama should be  judged solely on his actions; on his successes (and forensically) on his failures. There is a strong suspicion that the constant attacks on his policies errors by certain members of the media are being driven by an agenda that is, at least in part, inspired by his color. But the mainstream media, across both print and electronic outlets have taken on board that any criticism of the Obama presidency which mentions his color is rightly considered both irrelevant and an act of racism

For the most part the European press and media also do not talk of individuals in terms of their national or ethnic background unless it is deemed pertinent to the article.  When they refer to the Polish President or the Traveler (Gypsy or Tinker) community it is always in context.  This policy mirrors the mainstream media experience with the Obama administration discussed above. But there appears to be a clear exception. The European press does seem to have a love – hate relationship with “its Jews” and hence, its addiction to referencing “its Jews” with never a requirement for context.

Since it annihilated two thirds of its Jewish population in World War 2 Europe loves its past Jewish landscape and its gorgeous panoply of (dead) Jews.  But in the present, it rarely manages to have a good thing to say for live Jews and does little to nothing to protect them from assault while rarely failing to blame them for their own deaths. After all, if we only listened to our betters and did as we were told then everything would be perhaps, ‘alright’.

To be twice as good and to receive half of the credit for what you achieve is also very Jewish. Obama, as the first Black American President cannot take comfort in his parallel injustice.

In Britain, the excuse from the Left wing Guardian newspaper is that Jews cannot be trusted to act judiciously or morally when confronted by anything relating to the State of Israel unless they display openly their anti-Zionist credentials.  (I am sure that the New York Times is broadly similar). Therefore Jews must not be permitted to enjoy any responsibilities that may have an impact on the relationship with Israel.  It should not need emphasizing that I have never read or heard this argument with reference to any other ethnic or religious group because it would be racist to expound on this doctrine of bigotry under any circumstances.  But it does explain why the President has trodden so carefully on the issue of race-relations.  As a man of non-white complexion living in the White House he faces the same prejudice.

The Left and its Muslim allies have frequently used this racist fallacy when discussing the Rights of Jews. It is now consistently used against Jews and any Pro-Israel supporters in the struggle against BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions).  An African American  president may enjoy immunity from such prejudiced reporting but fear of igniting a negative reaction appears to have prevented him from attracting attention to any issues of race that continue to blight the nation.

Unfortunately we are indebted to our televisions (and today, other electronic communications devices) for much of the sub-conscious programming we receive.  It is responsible for a great deal of what we now think.  We should not be grateful.  Perhaps it is because I am sensitive to this subtle incitement to prejudice that I also recognize the wrong we commit when we label the first African American President by his color.  It isn’t political pride, it is subtle indoctrination.  Labeling creates associations and too often, an emotional response.

The cliché that we should judge people on their results and not on their skin color is only possible if we commit ourselves to language that is neutral.  Neutrality of language means a duller society.    Comedians, Jew and African American alike, exploit their own group foibles in their acts but they also reinforce the greater society’s prejudices. ‘In’ jokes inevitably demean someone or some group. So we are as guilty as the bigots for reinforcing negative stereotypes precisely because we do not take them seriously.

A degree of nihilism has entered into language and as a result we have lost that self-control that encouraged us to consider our actions first.  Think about rappers, their treatment of violence and demeaning of women.   Language informs us, it molds our attitudes and imprints our thoughts about how we relate to others.

Neutrality of language may make society duller but it also constrains society and the hurtful instinct that fear and weakness inspires. We need to recognize this fact. Perhaps then we will truly judge others by their achievements rather than by their physical characteristics.  Only then will we as a society reject the bigot.

Israel & the Diplomatic Struggle

Propaganda, Palestine & the Information  War (Part II)

On the 18^th of May I wrote about the PSC (Palestine Solidarity Campaign) and some of the tactics it employs to spread propaganda against Jews and Israelis.  I demonstrated three of the tactics practiced by our enemies:  incitement, denial, emotive concealment of intent.  The fourth and final cog in the machinery of disenfranchisement and delegitimization is diplomacy.

One of the PSC supporters reminded me of a book I had read: “Architects of annihilation: Auschwitz and the Logic of Destruction” (Gotz Aly and Susanne Heim). The authors detailed how the bureaucrats and their diplomatic minions were key enablers to the successful planning and implementation of Nazi strategy.  An empire that was to be built on the bloodied cadavers of tens of millions of Untermenschen (sub-humans) needed its Diplomatic Corps to carry out its policies of disinformation, dissimulation and theft. 

A woman on the Palestinian stall, tall, thin and well spoken, explained to me how she supervised PhD students at a major UK university.  She told me that before her latest career role most of her professional life had been spent in the Arab world as a British diplomat.  This former diplomat, now supervising the education of doctoral students, did not accept that her previous career choices might cause her to discriminate in her views on Israel, Jews, or on Judaism. 

Having been partly educated through Arab universities many British students have found careers in the British Foreign Office (and not coincidentally) in journalism, with its national and international stage.  Some years ago it was reported in the media that no Arab university would carry academic books written by Jews. It was admitted that those same Arab universities were reluctant to stock books authored by any one with a “Jewish sounding name.”  This situation is destined to remain unchanged if only because finance usually trumps morality and Western governments have been happy to encourage an Arab antisemitic narrative either for profit or to satisfy their own historically prejudiced cultural traditions.

And endemic cultural antipathy towards minorities within the Muslim world can only encourage a blinkered educational experience which, for the Western student of Islam or the Arab world, is a choice readily embraced, under whatever guise is offered.  I cannot see what benefits a society when it sends its children to be educated in a racist and fascist environment?   Unless that is, the intent is for a continued policy of prejudice that is held for some debased national purpose.

Perhaps the single thread that defines the history of diplomacy is the effort nations have made (and continue to make) in order to maintain power and acquire wealth.  Machiavelli viewed diplomacy as having no significance in the realm of civil society.  In the pursuit of power, practical considerations rather than ‘higher’ ideological national purpose or misguided ethics were the means by which nations would enrich themselves. 

The issue that supporters of Israel must confront is that the United States of America, France and Britain still fund institutions of higher learning in various Arab countries – which all adhere to the apartheid policies of the Arab regimes they serve.  Diplomats from the US Department of State, from the British Foreign Office and from the Quai d’Orsai study in the Arab World in order to be eligible for progression within their careers.

The reason behind this policy was partly explained in a book by John Loftus and Mark Aarons “The Secret War against the Jews.”   The book refers mainly to the post WW2 period when Jewish survivors of the Shoah were scattered across the Globe. Wherever the survivors went, Nazis, senior members of the SS and the Secret Police slipped in with them, often with the active assistance of Western intelligence agencies – CIA, MI6 and the French DGSE.

“During World War 2 the covert British wiretap program in the United States against Nazi sympathizers was extended to surveil American supporters of a Jewish State in Palestine.” (Loftus and Aarons) After the war this program was massively expanded to allow illegal British wiretaps of American Jews. A reciprocal arrangement probably exists to this day, in Britain.

“All the great nations have treated the Jews as expendable assets, obstacles to the secure supply of Arab oil.” ibid

Equally unconscionable was the fact that illegal electronic surveillance, the “you-spy-on-mine, I’ll spy-on-yours deal” was extended to other Western countries.

In the wake of what Jews experienced as historical reality Edward Snowden’s treason has exposed revelations of unprecedented global spying which for Jews in the Western World seems to be no more than a ‘normal’ act of betrayal against them.   It truly is a terrible indictment of our Western system of government that Jews continue everywhere to this day, to be society’s “canaries in the mine.”

Commercial interests in the Muslim world over-ride security considerations by exploiting domestic and foreign wiretaps to appease the Arab-Muslim alliance against Israel and “the Jews” but now also against everyone else in the Western world.
 

How frightening is this policy, can be understood by the following short post-911 anecdote: the White House and FBI facilitated the hurried departure of 140 Saudis (including two-dozen relatives of Osama bin Laden) from the United States to Saudi Arabia.  “In the days immediately following Sept. 11, 2001, while the airways were still closed to all other flights, Americans couldn't fly into the country but relatives of bin Laden were able to fly out.  President Bush personally facilitated the escape from America of many high ranking Saudi officials in a private jet.” (Boston Globe, 30 Sept. 2003)

Justice must be seen to be done or it becomes a sham that rots society from the inside.

In another quote from Loftus and Aarons they write that the diplomats “job is to make history and then bury it.” Only a fool considers that that war against the Jews and against Israel can be contained, that only the canary will succumb to this poison, injected over generations into the body politic by antisemitic Western governmental institutions.  Or, that its impact will be restricted to Israel and its supporters.

As long as we in the West continue to appease the Islamic world – whether for access to energy or geopolitical influence, bigots such as Baroness Tonge have no reason to exercise equanimity or be proportionate in their response to an Israeli presence in the Muslim world.  Instead, Israel will continue to be marginalised.

A pro-Muslim or pro-Arab anti-Zionist and antisemitic narrative may be ceaselessly debated in the backrooms of our government institutions and the classrooms of our universities but it can be explained without wasting energy on lies and half-truths.

Realpolitik declares Israel to be geographically insignificant.  It is no more than 1/800^th the size of the Arab world.  Israel’s population of 8 million citizens compares unfavourably to some 400 million “Arabs” (including persecuted minorities).  Even when we discount the factor of prejudice in nations, countries act on economic interest and not on ethics.  If justification is required, building a biased consensus based on lies just makes the task easier.

“Politics is a dirty game, international diplomacy is a cesspit, national interest is paramount, and double standards are the norm. Nevertheless justice is the demand of all those seeking to claim fairness on their side”.  Alan Melkman

How to claim fairness on our side? That is Israel’s (and our) greatest challenge.

Propaganda, Palestine and the Information War. (Part I)

The PSC (Palestine Solidarity Campaign) holds an annual stall in Richmond, South London and it spreads propaganda against Jews and Israelis.  I joined a group of people, Jews and Christians who have decided to take a stand against the lies disseminated by the PSC.  Richmond is the former constituency of the notorious anti-Zionist Jenny Tonge.

From this event I took away four tactics that are practiced by our enemies:  incitement, denial, emotive concealment of intent and the diplomacy of betrayal.

First, the truly committed antisemite does not care what they say and therefore as offensive as their narrative may be, one cannot argue with them, or even, as I did, use shock tactics to encourage them to confront their own statements.  Generalized assertions that are facile, provocative and weighed down with bile are intended for vilification, not dialogue; for propaganda not reconciliation.   By hammering home their message, making false connections and being selective about the truth, the Palestine Propaganda Campaign has the power to persuade even the most reasonable people that day is night and night is day.

Second, the Israeli side will always be willing to admit past wrongs and shared failure however, the Palestinian narrative is wholly based on denial. They deny the cultural and religious diversity of the geographical arena by expressly minimizing or denying any Jewish relevance to the area; they ignore many centuries of persecution throughout the Arab world by the Arabs against the indigenous Jewish population (which clearly was the contributory factor in Jewish demands for self-determination).

The Muslim Arab world has always been guilty of grossly abusing its minorities.  That is proven by history.  Rarely though, has this Islamic militancy, missionary zeal and an unquenchable thirst for conquest been investigated even as we place our own statecraft under the microscope of world opinion.  The Arab world feels no shame but instead it accuses its victims of implementing the same policies of which it is guilty.  We may label it transference of guilt but it is also a remorseless and cynical act of contempt for formerly persecuted, victim populations. It is hardly surprising that this should be the case.  For over 1,300 years Islam was the master of its own aggressive and acquisitive colonial triumphs.   To this day, the Arab and greater Muslim world remains in a state of mourning for the loss of Christian Spain 500 years earlier and Christian Greece almost 200 years ago.  After barely 70 years Jewish Israel cannot realistically expect that being freed from its Muslim colonial aggressor will be accepted, or forgiven, any time soon.

But while a theological pathology may explain denial, a deliberate campaign of lies is harder to combat.  And relearning a civil discourse (as I recently read) will only happen when the other side understands that it has something worse to lose.

Palestinian propaganda is anodyne; it is built on dissimulation and disinformation.  Their leaflets often portray the Arabs as victims of Western aggression.  Jews are portrayed as quintessentially foreign, which dovetails exquisitely with European antisemitic memes.

What truly disgusts me, and always will, is that the Nazis used the term “Judaisation” to describe the alleged Jewish conquest (cultural or financial) of Christian Europe.  It denoted a meme by which racial and religious fear was instilled in an already xenophobic and antisemitic population. This was an essential element of racial propaganda which fascism fed to a receptive population, a population that had already been primed by centuries of religiously inspired incitement and pious hypocrisy.   It should come as no surprise then, that the Palestinians and their supporters are such enthusiastic proponents of the same tactics, the same language.  But it does.  And tactics reflect aims.  It is for this reason I am filled with despair for the Palestinian bigots and their British fascist supporters because tactics clearly demonstrate that they are not interested in either reconciliation, or peace.

The late twentieth century was unique in the colossal sense of guilt and shame felt in the Western world for the commission of slavery, for racial prejudice and its inevitably nefarious outcomes, for Western imperialism and for genocide.  No other civilization has had to deal with such huge levels of guilt.   While we lash ourselves in self-righteous dishonor we remain blissfully ignorant of the inhumanity that non-Western nations were (and are) capable of committing.  This has been painfully demonstrated by Muslim slavers dressed in the theocratic insularity of Jihad. Once more they are reasserting their influence over the Nigerian faithful.  The Islamic world has the Koran and its commentaries to justify every activity for which we in the West now feel nothing but shame and guilt.  And they have 1,300 years of Islamic precedent to support their cause.  We already have conspiracy theorists blaming a shadowy non-Muslim ‘Other’ for the crimes of the faith community in Nigeria.

In the USA the apologists for the gun lobby state that guns do not kill people, people kill people. In the Muslim world the mantra for every unpalatable crime for which we in the West take exception is that “the true Muslim” is blameless.  And in our inverted moral universe we accept their excuses for every unimaginable crime against humanity committed by them.   Instead we should be demanding parity, the same high minded ethical conduct, regardless of race, creed or color.

So when the Muslim world and its Western acolytes lecture me on the Judaisation of Jerusalem or any other part of Israel I want to scream in rage at the injustice that despoils our historical memory, at the cynical abuse of language and at the willingness with which sympathizers on a Liberal-Left fascist continuum so readily collaborate in this Muslim-Arab war against “the Jews” (even when they call us Zionists).

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I began this piece by referring to four tactics practiced by our enemies:  incitement, denial, emotive concealment of intent and the diplomacy of betrayal.   The fourth and final cog in the machinery of disenfranchisement and delegitimization, diplomacy, I will analyse in the next piece.

Israel and the War of Ideas

In an article that was published by Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth (“A Light Intifada” by Alex Fishman) on the 1st of May it was written that the Palestinian Authority government is following a new aggressive strategy of a “light Intifada”: a series of graduated steps the intent of which is to keep the pressure on Israel while for now it refrains from hard violence. To paraphrase Fishman, the PA strategy is to hold talks as if there is no “Light Intifada” and to conduct a “Light Intifada” as if there are no talks.  Everything happens according to Palestinians’ terms. The reconciliation with Hamas, the delegitimization campaign against Israel, participation in various international organizations, popular resistance against Israel; these are all tactics in the new Intifada. And carrots? Abu Mazen’s statement about the Holocaust and the declaration that the unity government will act in the spirit of the PA (a two faced ‘concession’ if there ever was one) are all part of the new/old war being waged against us.

Alex Fishman concludes that Israel faces this onslaught in a confused and passive state.

Herein is Israel’s greatest challenge. When Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005 it was in pursuance of a proactive strategy. Israel disengaged from a hostile neighbor, building a security fence decreased the security threat that Gaza posed to its soldiers and in an increasingly antagonistic diplomatic environment Israel demonstrated a second time that strategic depth (the first was when Israel returned Sinai to Egypt) was less important than normalizing its relationship with its Arab neighbors.

How successful this strategy was may be open to debate but in the aftermath of its perceived failure Israel’s actions have been primarily reactive.  And that is diplomatically damaging to Israel.  If the purpose of Jewish self-determination (or independence) is to reassert a positive Jewish identity then the diplomatic battle being waged across the globe against Israel impacts not just Israel but all of its supporters.

The negotiations for a two state solution to the Israel – Palestine conflict have ground to a halt.  Mutual recriminations beset the principal protagonists. Each one asserts the claim that the other is one hundred percent to blame for obstructing the path to a credible solution. Courage is a pivotal requirement for both sides and peace will not be achievable without it. But what drives the breakdown in negotiating resolution is incitement – it demonstrates a lack of imagination – it shows a failure of nerve.

Israel is an island of ordered chaos in an ocean of instability. It must make allowances for its environment if it is to survive the violent storms that batter its defenses. That can only happen if it pays close attention to its neighbors.

For instance: Eighty three per cent of Egyptian women have experienced sexual harassment, 98% of foreign female visitors have suffered a worse fate if, they stupidly assume a right to appear in public. In Tahrir Square, in January 2011, after the revolution that brought Morsi to power (and before his subsequent overthrow), organized rape of women became common place and this was justified through the accusation that the ‘accused’ women were Coptic Christians, or Foreigners.  Egypt is the land of the pharaohs and the pyramids.  It also gave the world the Muslim Brotherhood, the institution that has spread like a contagion across the globe. It is a cross between the institution of the Inquisition and the Knights Templar.

Egypt is a deeply misogynistic and racist society.  In a country without Jews to blame, Christianity is given as the reason for any failures that cannot be placed on the Zionists. Churches are burned to the ground, libraries and ancient artifacts are destroyed because they are a blemish on the perfect Islamic landscape.

It could as easily be reminiscent of Israel’s experience of the Palestinians.

The Arab Aghlabid regime was the first, in history, to force Jews to wear the Star of David as a visible means of identification, over eleven-hundred years ago (in the 9th Century AD/CE).  President Mahmoud Abbas was awarded his doctorate for writing a thesis that questioned the extent of the Shoah and by associating Zionism with Nazism.  Mahmoud Abbas justified his bigotry with reference to the ongoing state of war between Jews and Muslims but as recently as 2013 he reaffirmed the veracity of his thesis and he sated that there was so much more he could write on the subject of collusion.

Israel’s critics may declare that it is counterproductive to obsess over the past but only a fool fails to internalise how earlier periods are viewed, from the battlements of history.

Since the election of Mahmoud Abbas to the office of President on January 15, 2005 corruption has been the only true growth industry in the PA, restricted only by the uncritical largess of donor nations. Palestinian society has been fed an unrestricted diet of incitement against Israel’s Jewish population while the PA only ever promotes its maximalist demands.  Mr. Abbas tells the world that his country will be Judenrein (Clean of Jews).  At the end of July 2013 he reiterated this point (according to Reuters) in a briefing he gave to (mostly) Egyptian journalists.

Such tactics are not intended to encourage trust or good faith negotiations. Fatah honored its jailed leader, Marwan Barghouti because “he had killed 61 Zionists”.  Quite simply a Zionist is any person of any faith who believes that Jews have a right to self-determination.  If an emphasis is placed on the man as murderer rather than any other quality he may possess then there is a difference between the General (who may have killed many more people) and the guerrilla leader who washes his hands in the blood of his victims.  Glorifying killers sends out a message.  A military leader can sue for peace but a killer, recognising the value of violence only, knows only how to celebrate the murders he or she has committed for the cause.   It is not a word game but a philosophical construct, a state of mind.

Sticks and stones may break your bones but with words begin the slaughter. It has always been so.

By demonising Israelis and portraying them as killers, thieves and liars, Abbas is using the language of the Koran and utilising religious dogma to entrench a mindset of war among his people. But equally he supports a creed that explains the inherent superiority of the Arab nation over “the other” which creates an expectation that the faithful will inevitably triumph over their enemy.   No room exists for compromise or co-existence.

“Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.”  Baruch Spinoza, (Theological-Political treatise 1670)

In the past, wars were usually fought between States of equal strength. Most contemporary conflicts are between asymmetric forces with the weaker side using non-state players (terrorists/freedom fighters) to rebalance the diplomatic and military equation.  If, to paraphrase Carl von Clausewitz, war is diplomacy by other means, then the reverse can also apply (as Alex Fishman demonstrated).

If that is the case it follows that Israel is to blame for the poor state of negotiations.  And the reason is that in the war of words it has allowed itself to appear passive; it has permitted the Palestinian negotiators to define the debate.   Many commentators remind us that nations make peace with their enemies.  And this argument has once more been brought into focus with the reported reconciliation between HAMAS and the Palestinian Authority.  But in order for warring nations to negotiate towards peace two things must happen.   First, both sides must make compromises. Second, the dominant player must impose their will on the negotiations. Israel has not done this.  It has failed to view a propaganda war as equal to a hot war.

Israel was not founded in sin. Its birth was a triumph of the downtrodden against an Arab enemy that was taught to honour violence, to seek out conquest and to belittle the aspirations of the minority within its borders (unless as an expedient, sharing power furthers the aims of the Arab ruler).  But we never hear this in any debate with our opponents.

In contrast to Pan-Arab nationalism, Turkish neo-Ottomanism and Iranian theocratic imperialism Zionism demands equality as a birthright for all the states inhabitants. 

In an article that appeared in Ynet on the 1st of May Bibi Netanyahu announced his intention to enshrine, by formal legislation, the status of the State of Israel as a nation-state of the Jewish people. As a cultural cornerstone of the state it makes it clear to Israel’s neighbours that any successful negotiation between Israel and Palestine will be dependent on maintaining the centrality of a Jewish national character within the State of Israel.  “A new Basic Law declaring Israel a Jewish state would largely be symbolic, an Israeli official said.  "It is a declaration to show that this is part of our national ethos."”

There should be no conflict between Jewish and democratic values.  Treating the stranger amongst us as equal to us is a key plank of Jewish religious (and Jewish secular) dogma, even if, within the heat of building the nation, there are far too many people who appear to have forgotten this crucial biblical injunction.

Zionism created a Utopian vision which was later expressed in Israel’s Declaration of Independence and which in turn forms the inspiration for Israel’s Basic (constitutional) laws.   It is worthwhile to repeat part of that founding Declaration:

“The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture…”

In Israel, equality exists in law.  Like elsewhere within the non-Muslim world it remains an aspiration that must guide its legislators towards the ethical development of the state.

Margaret Nevinson, wife of the British artist Richard Nevinson, writing in 1926 about the aftershocks from World War One stated the everywhere there is “callousness produced by the long spectacle of pain and suffering.”  If it exists here too, perhaps it is because we can no longer see an end to our conflict with our enemy.   If only to be in a position to make concessions, Israel has to negotiate from strength, not weakness.   Because the nations of the world have learned to ignore the history of the conflict, Israel, when confronted with a war of ideas appears to be weak and therefore, guilty as charged.  In order to win the peace every opportunity must be made for Israel’s truths to be repeated. It must demonstrate that the Arab world and as part of the Arab World, the Palestinian Authority has no interest in real peace, no interest in conflict resolution, and no interest in religious reconciliation.  Only then will we make progress towards resolution.

For those who think that the war is lost, "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

BDS and Israel, a study in Hypocrisy

We are always being asked why this noxious poison of antisemitism refuses to wither?  The commitment within Liberal and Socialist traditions of adherence to human rights and ‘equality’ has always carried within this promise the germ of antisemitism. Though antisemitism transmogrified into anti-Zionism a denial of the connection between the two ideologies was always an essential element of the propaganda war against the Jews both as an identifiable religious group and as individuals that enabled the racist to exist so comfortably within a human rights skin.

The reason is an original sin of prejudice born out of a time of radical change that engendered fear and a search for the comfort of familiarity.  Acquaintance with chauvinism and narrow-mindedness encouraged the inclusion of a prejudiced narrative in the founding traditions of the radical movements. It was simple and when required it explained away the failure to attract sufficient followers needed to seize power.  Marx would have made a good Nazi.  Much of what he wrote was a new way of thinking but he peppered his narratives with bigotry and prejudice so that his acolytes could take comfort from the familiarity offered by the poisoned pen of other nineteenth century writings.  Some of the most prominent and enthusiastic supporters of twentieth century liberal tradition lacked the intuitive abhorrence of violence which their desire for liberal Nazism quite unsurprisingly failed to inoculate them against.

Both pre-Shoah Christianity and Islam were founded on a mission to conquer the globe for their adherents and history has shown us that unfortunately, people in power will justify any atrocity and every abomination if provided with the excuse.  Civilizing the world pacified the heretofore unconquered natives but it allowed those who controlled the forces of conquest and colonization to reap enormous profits from the suffering of those same natives. And Islam was no different to Christianity in this respect, in many ways it was far worse because it provided the means by which the international slave trade prospered.  While Christianity continues to grapple with its malevolent past, Islam has not even recognized that its past is toxic. Theologically, it is not possible for it to even begin on that journey.

There are those within the Muslim world such as Omar Barghouti who are intellectually as well as emotionally incapable of granting Jews equality of any kind.  I will return to him later. A hate industry from which the intellectual bully and the thug profit equally is seductive to the thinking hypocrite because it mobilizes militant foot soldiers as well as some within the academic community.  We live in a world that is divided between western civilization and the rest. The “West” has deified freedom of speech (even when it only selectively applies it in Europe) while those that oppose Western civilization worship selective censorship. There is no middle ground to protect all communities from its abusers.

It is a simple issue that far too many people are happy to ignore. Israel is a state that would have come into existence as a predominantly Jewish state without the added burden of European history because it was an act of self determination made inevitable by historic Arab persecution against non-Arabs, and by Muslims maltreatment of non-Muslims. The denial of a Jewish right to self-determination is therefore an act of racism.

And Israel is a state like any other state. It has a Right of Return; so do at least 37 other nations in the world. No one judges that right, or declares that it is racism, except when Israel practices that sovereign right.  The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 13 is controversially recognized as referring to the Right of Return. Repatriation is viewed internationally as creating a safe haven for Diaspora populations living under threat. We in Britain also have such an Act of Sanctuary which was enacted to protect “our own” from the threat of persecution.

Any nation or organization or individual working to overturn that right must prove it does so with equal vigour against all other political, racial, religious or national entities. Otherwise it is antisemitic.  It really is that simple. Israel has allowed its enemies to hijack the debate over the nature of the conflict.

There can be no resolution of the conflict while the Arab and greater Muslim world views the right to rule over and to terrorize ‘its’ Jews as theological or racial holy writ. The same applies to Christians who throughout the Muslim world are a persecuted minority but who continue to support a Muslim-Arab anti-Jewish narrative.

Christians no longer fulfill the ethnic cleansers dictum “First the Saturday people (Jews) and then the Sunday people (Christians)” uttered by Yasser Arafat.  Before the Arab Spring it was easy to blame persecution of Christians on Israel because a willing Western audience would accept whatever lies were easiest to understand. It is much easier than an alternative explanation that we are at war with Islamists who happily torture and murder adults as well as children, for their faith. But al Qaeda and Salafist groups everywhere have rarely hidden their animosity towards Christians as well as Jews and everyone else not like them.  That includes the wrong kind of Muslim. They have hurt far more Muslims than they have infidels.  This prejudice is why President Abbas of the Palestinian National Authority will not recognize the validity of a Jewish state even as he creates one more Muslim state based on Arab apartheid principles.

The global Muslim nation has attempted on numerous occasions to criminalise the defamation of religion. But to be more specific, the ‘legitimate’ criticism they attempt to outlaw applies only to Islam. When Muslims refer to the pantheism of Hinduism as abomination, or the Christian trinity as idolatry, or to Judaism as corrupted by interpretation, their derision may be theological but scorn remains abusive and it leads to incitement. Intellectual or academic debate must be without limits or those limits must be equally, tenaciously applied, or it is no more than selective censorship harnessed as targeted provocation.  It is the responsibility of society to manage what is permissible because without restriction, society will fall. But equally dangerous is discrimination. It erodes the law.  The Islamic faithful call this subversion of debate ‘justified’ criticism but selective bigotry is a weapon of cultural conquest.  By owning or controlling the narrative, history becomes no more than strings of words subject to manipulation by those willing to abuse it.  In the attempt to stifle debate it is cultural colonialism and it is as dangerous as any physical act of conquest enacted in the past. It represents the slavery of the mind - as pernicious as any physical act of slavery because without the former the latter is not possible.

Like all conflicts, there are conflicting truths and conflicting narratives. And here is the problem. To the racist, conflict resolution is an exercise in futility unless the inherent superiority of one side over the other is acknowledged and therefore there can only ever be one truth and one narrative (or set of truths).

Omar Barghouti is one of the leaders of BDS (the Movement for the Boycott, Divestment and Slander [Sanction] of Israel).  As explained by The Institute for National Security Studies (TAU) the BDS campaign was initiated at the First Durban Conference (the "World Conference against Racism"), held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001. BDS is an integral part of the global campaign to delegitimize Israel currently being waged (mainly in the West) and led by networks and activists affiliated with the far left and radical Islam. The ultimate goal of BDS is to cause the collapse of the State of Israel.

Omar Barghouti is very eloquent, so much so, his anti-Zionism sounds rational. His honeyed tongue and unassuming personal demeanour does not however, hide an uncompromising antipathy towards Jewish rights in the greater (fascist) Arab world.   

I have taken a section of speech by Omar Barghouti in which he sets out his vision for a post-Jewish Palestine and rephrased it to express the only possible hope for a future unencumbered by conflict and strife.

Please emphasise that it is in the spirit of our non-violent response to BDS that we borrow Omar’s finely crafted words (and re-craft them to express the Jewish vision for a peaceful Middle East):

“The post oppression identity of the indigenous Israelis and the indigenized Arab settlers who have acquired rights by their conquest over time must be rebalanced through a process of ethical decolonisation also known as de-Arabisation. All Arab colonial privileges must be abolished.  Not just in Israel, but also across the Near-East, where the regions legitimate refugees have lost their  ancestral homes to the racist Arab colonialist entity, ethical co-existence has to be re-established with all the  marginalised non-Arab nations.”

Israeli Sovereignty and the Three Noes

Sovereignty gives a nation supreme power within its borders.  It involves: independence of action, control over borders and the right to enact legislation that affects the people residing within those borders. It is the renunciation of those rights that we find difficult to accept and sometimes it is with good reason, because the laws that are made represent a standard that is far too often abused. For example, the European Union defines human rights as a standard and it does create issues of gross abuse.

Racists too often aspire to deny those of us who disagree with them our rights to defend ourselves against them. Too many Muslim preachers have disproportionate influence and use that influence to peddle their hate and to incite their followers to commit murder on their behalf.

Violence is a legitimate instrument of intimidation both for the fascist who believes in divine right and, to their political acolytes on the extremes of left and right.

The prerogative to commit violence (up to and including the taking of life) is the prerogative of the state. It is the ultimate symbol of the abuse of sovereign power for those that oppose its use.  But we inadvertently (perhaps) assign that right to groups and individuals when we fail to protect other groups and other individuals from those that knowingly choose to abuse our laws.

Example: it took eleven years for the Muslim Nazi Abu Qatada to be deported back to Jordan during which time he was able to continue to spread the cancer of his ideas far and wide. “According to the British case against him, in October 1999 he made a speech in which "he effectively issued a fatwa authorizing the killing of Jews, including Jewish children". He told his congregation that Americans should be attacked, wherever they were; that in his view they were no better than Jews; and that there was no difference between English, Jewish and American people."   (Robert Booth, Prosecutor)

Freedom of speech is not an absolute unless we provide the legal instrument for the ordinary citizen who feels threatened by that speech to fight back with equal ferocity. If physical violence is a blunt tool for the everyman or woman, then we must question the academic justification for verbal and written incitement which is far more damaging to the fabric of society.  It is meant to intimidate and by its coercive nature its intent is to instill fear and through dread to create a regime of manipulation and control.

The Abu Qatada’s of this world, through their foul and poisonous words encourage those people who see nothing inherently immoral in slitting the throats of children, flying airplanes into buildings or torturing their enemies.  Where is the duty to protect their victims?  Abu Qatada described the 9/11 attacks as part of a wider battle between Christianity and Islam while Osama bin-Laden was only expressing what many ordinary folk in the West felt about the attacks and that was that the murder of 3,000 people on 9/11 was a divine celebration of sovereign Islamic power.

Sovereignty.  The Islamic republic of Turkey exercised its sovereign right to determine who and what could enter and leave from its borders when it permitted the Mavi Marmara to sail from Antalya Port in May 2010. The IHH is an Islamist and therefore religiously racist organization that is banned in Holland and Germany. It is now under investigation in Turkey also. Key members of its board were supporters of the Turkish government at the time of the Mavi Marmara incident.  The Islamist government of Turkey needed a provocation by a local group against the State of Israel as a means of repudiating Jewish sovereignty. At best, Turkey, by permitting the Mavi Marmara to sail from its shores was dictating to Israel that its right to self-defense was circumscribed by Turkey.  This is consistent with statements made by Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu warning Turks against integration into European society and, statements he has made on Israel. Simply stated, a nation either has the right to defend its borders, to identify hostile elements and either silence or remove any threats to its security or it consciously acquiesces to a diminution of its sovereign status.

Another example of sovereignty is that the State determines the laws of the land.  A person who spies for another nation must bear the consequences of their actions.  Israel would like to see Jonathon Pollard freed from his 28 year incarceration, however many Americans would take comfort from his death in prison. American law will decide Pollard’s fate when he becomes eligible for parole towards the end of 2015.   Israel may be unhappy with his long years in solitary confinement and compare his punishment unfavorably to those of Robert Hanssen, Aldrich Ames, Jerry Whitworth, and John Walker but so what? He broke the law and he was caught doing it.  This finally, leads us neatly into the 3 Noes of Mahmoud Abbas.

But first, let us begin with a brief history of genocide.  Prior to World War 2 a states citizens were the property of the state.  Post 1945 the world recognized, largely as a result of the work of one man, Raphael Lemkin, that the world could no longer be governed by the existing paradigm of the state verses the individual where the fate of the individual was solely determined by the state.  This shift in political will involved a lessening of national sovereignty for the greater good. People retained individual rights as an absolute (at least in the Western World they did).

If sovereignty is the ability to determine the fate of ones own citizens then those that commit murder are legally and morally the responsibility of the State.  Any crime may be labeled a ‘political’ crime.  There can be no ethical justification for differentiating between a crime committed from political belief and any other crime.

But something else unwelcome also changed.

For a brief period the dividing line between what constituted terrorist and freedom fighter was that the latter attacked agents of government such as the police and the military while the former sowed fear in the population in order to force them to submit to their will.  The terrorist did this by committing ‘random’ terror against civilians.  It was an interpretation by the extreme Left that all people in society were agents of society (i.e. there were no innocents in a revolutionary struggle) that returned us to an age of fear. This once more redefined the concept of warfare. In less than a single generation, post World War 2, we returned to the barbarism of pre-1945 concepts of human conflict.  Except of course that where a political struggle is defined as ‘just’ the right to commit any atrocity is justified while the target of the struggle is constrained by legal virtue to uphold the ‘rules of war.’ But this requires control of both the media and the narrative as an essential tool in the propagandist’s arsenal of weapons because without both there can be no justification for terrorism.

Mahmoud Abbas has stated his three noes as follows:

1)       He rejects Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand that

Palestine recognizes Israel as a Jewish state.

2)       He refuses to abandon the Palestinian “right of return” for millions of descendants of those who lived in Israel prior to June 1948. The unique definition of a Palestinian “refugee” is any one who resided in Palestine during a two year period that encompassed the years 1946 to 1948.

3)       He refused to commit to an “end of conflict” under which a peace deal would represent the termination of any further Palestinian demands on Israel.  Without it there would never be a peace treaty but a series of escalating demands, any of which, the failure to achieve, would result in the abrogation of the period of ‘peaceful co-existence’ between the two states.  This is an Islamic concept and it refers to a staged conquest.  It is called “Dar al-Hudna” and its sole purpose is to serve as a respite between wars.  Early Islamic jurists created different categories of interaction in order to legally justify Islamic conquest.

The Palestinian Authority Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud al-Habbash stated towards the end of March 2014 that the Western Wall was part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and that Jews had no right to pray there.  Again, this is an issue of sovereignty.

But more than that, if I am denied my own history then I can be erased from history.

Having erased Jewish history in East Jerusalem between 1948 and 1967 the Palestinian leadership continues to insist, as a matter of political strategy and religious theology that East Jerusalem, is in its entirety, the capital of the Palestinian state.  History as propaganda and narrative justification for the armed struggle against every man, woman and child in the Yishuv (The State of Israel) begins, but does not end with Jerusalem. But if history teaches us anything, it is that cultural genocide is a common weapon within Muslim colonial enterprises.

And last, if the fourth phase of the prisoner release, consisting of 26 long term prisoners (all of them with murder convictions) was agreed by Israel, the release is unacceptable, only, if among that number are Israeli Arabs.  We are told that 14 of them were Israeli Arabs. We are being told that Secretary of State Kerry agreed this arrangement with Mahmoud Abbas without consulting Prime Minister Netanyahu.  It is unbelievable if it is true and I have not read any Western account that disputes this.

As an issue of national sovereignty Israeli Arabs are not and can never be subject to negotiation.  Unless of course. President Abbas wants to swap land and Israeli Arabs as part of any final status peace deal. Separate sovereignty between warring nations is inviolate. A person from within the nation who kills for the other side is a traitor.  Their beliefs are their personal identity but they live under the laws of the State. It is not possible that Kerry was unaware of this fact – it is of enormous concern that he could assume anything else. If it is correct, it creates huge issues of trust.

There is no debate that the issue of prisoner releases is emotive for Israel but it is also an inseparable part of the Palestinian ethos. This is the problem. If the murderer has social status, financial benefit and a guaranteed “get out of jail ‘free’ card” then violence rather than a path to reconciliation becomes a perverse expression of Palestinian sovereignty and one that will always take precedence over Jewish (Israeli) rights. The idea that Palestinians have control over Israeli citizens is to imply that Israel has limited sovereign rights.

Could anyone imagine the President of France demanding a declaration of war by French Canadians on the USA? Or as a consequence, that the “revolutionaries” be granted immunity from prosecution for any crimes they committed against either the USA or Canada?

If there is to be any chance of a peace settlement then Israel must declare its red lines in terms of its sovereignty. The strength of the Palestinian National Movement is in its Arab-Muslim narrative that defines the absolute rights of Palestinians in contradistinction to the obligations of Jews (Israelis).  Consistent with this Palestinian-Arab colonialist movement is an idea that has plagued the Near-East for far too many centuries. It is inherent within Muslim theology that non-Muslims cannot be other than second class citizens, inferior in law and society, dependent always on the good will of Muslim ‘munificence’.

Simon Shiffer in Ynet news on the 3^rd of March 2014 (Proposed Pollard deal: The victory of reason) stated that “the possible release of an Israeli spy in exchange for Israeli Arab murderers proves there are no sacred  principles binding decision makers….but it appears that Abbas himself will not budge on his ‘principles’ and yes, that is the problem.” Israel must thank Mahmoud Abbas for reminding us that principles are important for us also.  Israel has disregarded too many sacred truths for no reciprocal benefit.  It is time that Israel’s diplomats pushed back.

Russian Sovereignty and the Fearful Nation

All nations have red lines which must be respected.  When nations fail to respect the integrity (whether historical memory or physical borders) of nations then we have conflict and inevitably it is this failure to appreciate red lines that escalates past the point of confrontation into military conflict.

In Western Europe and the USA we have failed to acknowledge Russian history and it is this failure of ours that has created the latest crisis in Crimea.

Sevastopol has been the headquarters of Russia's Black Sea Fleet since 1783. We study history to understand and we would hope, to learn from the past. When Hitler invaded Russia in Operation Barbarossa he opened up an Eastern Front that stretched from Estonia in the North down to Crimea in the South. That invasion was along the entire borderline of Western Russia – a distance of some 2,000 kilometers.  According to Nazi Germany’s “Generalplan Ost” or the “Master Plan for the East” first the Slav’s deemed racially ‘acceptable’ were destined for enslavement (Germanic people would colonize the Central and Eastern European territories) and the rest would be murdered.  So nearly all Poles, Ukrainians, Russians, Serbs, and Croats – in fact most of Central and Eastern Europe, was to be ‘cleared’ of what the Nazis called “Untermenschen” or sub-humans.

Russia has a long history of conflict, war and conquest.  If this is viewed as expansionism then Napoleons’ invasion of Russia, the Crimean War, the Russo-Japanese War, the Russian Civil War and the Second World War are all poignant reminders that even if Russia wins, in terms of casualties it always loses.

When empires collapse they usually leave the centre intact. The mother (or father) land retains its sovereign, national home.  Russia’s fatherland is a multi-ethnic federation.  When we disregard history, for whatever reason, we fail to appreciate that even a nuclear armed Russia can be vulnerable and therefore can fear for its safety.  With the break-up of the Soviet Union, Russia has seen its empire disintegrate and its closest allies defect to the European Union.  Why then do we ignore the Russian suspicion that both the Western world and Islamic forces desire the disintegration of the Russian Federation?

Again, I do not understand why we in the West assumed that the coup d’état against the legitimately elected ruler of Ukraine would be acceptable to Vladimir Putin?  Diplomatic intimidation has never worked with Russia.  It is only the perception that Russia was and is weak that could have tempted the West to support the Ukrainian coup.   The choice for the West was understandably going to be Yulia Tymoshenko.  She served as Prime Minster in 2005 and again from December 2007 until March 2010.  She not only wanted to join the EU but also NATO. Statements she made indicated her wish to abrogate treaties the Ukraine had with Russia.  The Russian Black Sea Fleet would no longer enjoy access to Ukrainian port facilities and security protocols would be drawn up to both guarantee Ukrainian independence and to block “Russian Expansionism” – as Tymoshenko saw it.

The journalist Nahum Barnea wrote that “Ukraine is a failed state, slowly, inextricably crumbling due to rampant corruption and ethnic and religious tension.” Former President Viktor Yanukovych was elected president in 2010, defeating Yulia Tymoshenko. Yanukovych rejected a proposed agreement for closer ties with the EU (in November 2013) and what followed were protests that were centered on Kiev. As the civil unrest spread across the Ukraine the specter of civil war grew with the casualties. President Yanukovych fled to Russia in late February 2014. He left behind a 340 acre Estate with its own palace that was packed with priceless treasures.  So he was a gold plated thief who seems to have stolen wholesale from his people. But he was Putin’s gold plated thief and he opposed whatever Tymoshenko the Capitalist believed in.

If we truly understood Russia then the best case scenario is Ukrainian neutrality and Russian indirect authority over its neighbours.  The USA and Europe can continue to confront Russian power or they can engage in and create a practical compromise by which all parties gain confidence and long term security through military de-escalation and economic and social integration. But this will only occur if a buffer is created between Russia and its perceived antagonists.

We cannot continue to seek to contain Russia as if the Cold War had moved eastward into the Russian Federation itself because it is clear that under those conditions Russia will fight back. The only beneficiary in this latest conflict is going to be the world’s other superpower, China, which can happily watch as Europe, America and Central Asia descend into another bleak period of uncertainty and instability.

Global economic dislocation has created opportunities to realign superpower interests. After the fall of the Soviet Empire the world was briefly held together by US unipolarity.  It may not be a bad thing if Russian intervention in Ukraine has forced the EU to re-consider its role in global affairs.  It has rarely demonstrated a position that differed from the USA because its economic and political interests were congruent with American interests. And Europe would have been the primary beneficiary in any diminution of Russian economic power because of its proximity to and its geographical accessibility to Eastern Europe.

In “Syria, a Russian–American failure” (29/6/2013) I wrote that “Big Power cooperation would cause others to pause before interfering militarily, and may even constrain the colonial ambitions of other nations.” My criticism was then, and is now that “this is an area where America has failed to grasp an historic opportunity to create a strategic partnership with Russia ….. Cooperation rather than competition (between the USA and Russia) is the only way to defuse tensions….”

Détente between the two great nations could mark the next transformative stage in global international diplomacy.  It would lead to peaceful cooperation between former enemies and it could lead to less robust Chinese expansionism in the South East Asian region.