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Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST

Feb. 12, 2007

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One of the most difficult things in life is to draw the line between friend and foe. Take the Palestinian terror groups.

Last week in Mecca, the Fatah terror group, which mixes the murder of Israelis with negotiations with Israelis, officially joined forces with the Hamas terror group, which murders Israelis while refusing to negotiate with us.

Although the agreement makes it clear that both are at war with Israel, on Sunday the Olmert government decided to reserve judgment on the terror unity deal. And Monday morning Vice Premier Shimon Peres warned that saying bad things about the Mecca deal would only weaken Fatah terror boss Mahmoud Abbas, whom we should strengthen because he likes to negotiate while killing.

Given how hard it is for Israel to identify its Arab foes, it is little wonder that identifying Jewish foes is a near-Herculean task.

Last month the American Jewish Committee took an important first step in this direction by publishing a paper by Prof. Alvin Rosenfeld from the University of Indiana entitled, "'Progressive' Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism." Explaining the difference between criticism of Israel and demonization of the Jewish state, Rosenfeld wrote, "To call Israel a Nazi state… as is commonly done today, or to accuse it of fostering South African-style apartheid or engaging in ethnic cleansing or wholesale genocide goes well beyond legitimate criticism." Rosenfeld noted that these descriptors of Israel, which aim to single out Israel "as a political entity unworthy of secure and sovereign existence" are today "part of a standard discourse among 'progressive' American Jews, who seem to take for granted that the historical record shows Israel to be an aggressor state guilty of sins comparable to Hendrik Verwoerd's South Africa and Hitler's Germany."

HAVING described the phenomenon, Rosenfeld proceeded to identify prominent American Jews, including New York University Prof. Tony Judt, playwright Tony Kushner, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, Noam Chomsky, and Adrienne Rich as leading Jewish lights in the leftist assault on the Jewish people's right to self-determination in our homeland.

Rosenfeld's paper evoked strong reactions in the American Jewish community. A New York Times write-up of the controversy entitled, "Essay Linking Liberal Jews and Anti-Semitism Sparks a Furor," described how the same "progressive" Jews and their supporters are up in arms over being painted as anti-Semites. Judt opined that the point of the article was to silence them.

This of course, is pure nonsense. All the Jews in America couldn't silence Judt and his colleagues even if they wished to. As anti-Israel Jews, they will never lack prestigious forums from which to propagate their hatred for Israel.

Far from seeking to silence these hostile Jewish voices, Rosenfeld's essay simply serves to draw lines between friend and foe where such lines are important. The views of Kushner, Judt and Cohen are no less anti-Jewish than similar statements by non-Jews.

Rosenfeld's efforts, while important, are insufficient. The likes of Judt and Kushner use their professed Jewishness as a tool to advance the cause of Israel's denunciation. Others hide behind protestations of Zionism to undermine Israel's right to defend itself against enemies actively working toward its destruction.

CASE IN point is the Union of Progressive Zionists. The UPZ is the US campus representative of the Labor and Meretz parties as well as of Hashomer Hatzair and Habonim Dror. In its mission statement, the UPZ claims to be "a network of student activists organizing on campuses across North America for social justice and peace in Israel/Palestine. The UPZ was created to provide guidance, education and resources to students who seek to impart a progressive voice into the campus debate on Israel."

Mission statement in hand, the UPZ joined the Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC) - a pro-Israel umbrella group established to build support for Israel and fight the rise in anti-Israel incitement on college campuses. Yet, while operating under the ICC umbrella, UPZ is actually promoting hostility toward Israel and so advancing the cause of those who maintain that Israel has no right to exist.

In recent months, under the aegis of the ICC, the UPZ has hosted members of the radical leftist Israeli organization "Breaking the Silence" on a number of college campuses. "Breaking the Silence" was established by former IDF soldiers for the declared purpose of "exposing" the "irreversible corruption" of Israeli society by the IDF's counterterror operations in Judea and Samaria.

Armed with photographs which purposely present a distorted image of IDF operations, soldiers and Israeli civilians in Judea and Samaria, the group works to demonize and criminalize the IDF and so undermine Israel's right to defend itself against the Palestinian jihad. That is, it seeks to advance an aim which is diametrically opposed to the goals of the ICC.

Ilan Benjamin, an Israeli chemistry professor at University of California at Santa Cruz, attended the UPZ-sponsored "Breaking the Silence" event on his campus. In a letter to the ICC Benjamin wrote, "the presentation was neither fair nor balanced, but was rather unabashedly anti-Israel." He continued, "There was almost no mention of why the Israeli army is inside Arab towns. [The program's speaker] dismissed the notion that security checkpoints prevent a large percentage of the suicide bombers… [S]tudents who attended the event did not get a crucial point of information necessary for a critical understanding of the conflict, namely, that Israel is in a state of war with a terrorist organization imbedded in civilian neighborhoods."

THE CONTRADICTION between the UPZ and "Breaking the Silence's" protestations of Zionism and the aim of their programming is so blatant that even the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles weighed in on the issue. In a report to the Foreign Ministry published in Yediot Aharonot, Ehud Danoch, the consul-general warned: "The willingness of Jewish communities to host these organizations and even sponsor them is unfortunate. This is a phenomenon that must not be ignored."

But the ICC has decided to ignore the phenomenon. Last month, the Zionist Organization of America, which is also an ICC member, requested that the ICC's Steering Committee expel the UPZ on the grounds that through its sponsorship of "Breaking the Silence" it contravened the ICC's explicit mission of defending Israel.

The Steering Committee, which includes representatives of the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, AIPAC, Aish HaTorah, the Jewish National Fund, Hillel, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and the Shusterman Foundation, voted unanimously to reject ZOA's request. (Aish HaTorah later renounced its vote and joined ZOA in calling for UPZ's eviction from the Coalition.) In their decision, the member organizations argued that there is no "cause under the ICC's membership criteria to remove UPZ from the Coalition."

Although unjustifiable, the ICC's refusal to expel the UPZ is understandable. Obviously, it is hard to get beyond labels. The UPZ's self-definition as a Zionist group makes it even harder to attack than self-professed Jews who declare their anti-Zionism. This is the case despite the fact that the damage the actions of both groups cause to Israel's position in the world is more or less the same.

There is also UPZ's "progressiveness" to consider. Given that for four generations, American Jews tied their fortunes almost solely to the Left, expelling leftist groups from Jewish umbrella groups involves openly recognizing the painful fact that today the Left makes little place for the pro-Israel community in its ranks.

As Rosenfeld put it, "Because... the ideological package that informs progressive politics today links anti-Zionism to anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism, anti-globalization, anti-racism, etc., one is expected as a matter of course to be against Zionism." Or as he quotes political scientist Andrei Markovits, "If one is not at least a serious doubter of the legitimacy of the State of Israel… one runs the risk of being excluded from the entity called 'the left.'"

THE LEFT'S abandonment of Israel is compounded by the fact that the Palestinian jihad, which is rooted in a Palestinian rejection of the notion of coexisting with Israel, has rendered irrelevant the "progressive Zionist" goal of forcing Israel to withdraw its forces and citizens from Judea and Samaria in order to establish a Palestinian state in the areas, as well as in Gaza and eastern Jerusalem. Instead of accepting this paradigm-shattering truth, "progressive Zionists" have chosen the path of radicalization. Rather than calling on the Arabs to abandon jihad and accept Israel, they have turned to criminalizing Israel for defending itself from the jihadist forces bent on the wholesale slaughter of its citizens.

Like Israel, if American Jews are to have any chance of properly defending themselves, they must first openly identify the trends. As political loyalties and alliances shift, a small people like the Jews must be willing to distinguish friend from foe. This is true whether the friend or foe in question is an Arab or a Jew; a self-proclaimed progressive or a self-proclaimed conservative.

Truth and punishment

Arabs know excavation works not damaging mosque

Elyakim Haetzni

Published:

02.12.07, 17:37 / Israel Opinion

There's nothing like the Mugrabi Gate affair to prove the futility of the dream of reconciliation with the Arabs. After all, it is clear to all, even to Leftist Jews, that the Arabs know the truth, but this doesn't change a thing.

 

Sheikh Ra'ad Salah stood there at the excavation site – expressly outside the Temple Mount compound, far from the mosques – and shamelessly announced: "This is a crime. Israel is destroying part of the al-Aqsa Mosque."

 

"There's no excuse for the excavation works that are undermining the sacredness of Islam." I would have understood had the head of the Islamic Movement's northern branch said this, but it's surprising to hear King Abdullah of Jordan, a sought-after and beloved partner who knew about the excavations in advance, saying so. How can he accuse us of something he knows isn't true, and that we know that he knows? And what does Olmert say to himself when Mahmoud Abbas, who received funds, arms and kisses from him, when Abbas attacked Israel "for changing the character of the place and making it Jewish" – when even he knows the truth.

 

This false protest is consciously backed by countries such as Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan – all described by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni as "moderate Arab states with whom we not only share the same values but also the same interests." How will Livni explain that her new friends are now setting her up?

 

Slap in the face from Siniora

This question should concern the peace camp, because it is seeking to mortgage our future against the words and signatures of such people and regimes. Either the "partners" have remained enemies within, or despite them being "moderate" they are being pressured by their people to attack. Either way, the result is the same; we shall surrender the heart of our country, threaten our security, and risk a civil war in exchange for a commitment that is worthless.

 

Olmert received a similar slap in the face from Lebanon's Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, who is presenting the deployment of troops in the south of Lebanon as an "achievement" of the last war. Even Siniora was informed of the plan to carry out excavation works in our sovereign territory, and knowing the truth he sent his army to fire at us and condemn us for our "Israeli aggression."

 

The new Arab colleagues are no different than Arafat, who also knew that the Western wall Tunnel and Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount did not undermine the mosques, yet despite this, with cold cynicism, he turned both these incidences into a casus belli for two wars.

 

The defense minister, who is folding under anti-truth terror, is reminiscent of Katherina in Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew.

 

Petruchio:

I say it is the moon that shines so bright.

 

Katherina:

I know it is the sun that shines so bright.

 

Petruchio:

Now by my mother's son, and that's myself,

It shall be moon, or star, or what I list,

Or ere I journey to your father's house.

Go on and fetch our horses back again.

Evermore cross'd and cross'd; nothing but cross'd!

 

Hortensio:

Say as he says, or we shall never go.

 

Katherina:

Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,

And be it moon, or sun, or what you please;

And if you please to call it a rush-candle,

Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.

 

Petruchio:

I say it is the moon.

 

Katherina:

I know it is the moon.

 

Petruchio:

Nay, then you lie; it is the blessed sun.

 

Katherina:

Then, God be bless'd, it is the blessed sun;

But sun it is not, when you say it is not;

And the moon changes even as your mind.

What you will have it nam'd, even that it is,

And so it shall be so for Katherine.

 

Same old story in Jerusalem

Experience shows that capitulating in Jerusalem worse than violence

Uzi Landau

Published:

02.15.07, 00:36 / Israel Opinion

The prime minister's determination in the Mugrabi Gate affair is a positive surprise for me. Only if he continues along this route of not caving in to threats and terror, there's a chance we'll live here in peace. The Jerusalem mayor's decision to reexamine the matter will only lead to deterioration. Gentleman, it's the same old story!

 

October 6, 2000. In the face of bloody riots at Temple mount, and in response to Muslim threats, Ehud Barak decided to evacuate the Israel Police from Temple Mount and deploy it below, at the Western Wall. The result: The Waqf forbade Jews from visiting the Mount; Palestinian cheekiness grew.

 

Every Friday, during prayer time, the Arab preacher delivered a sermon of hatred against Israel and fanned the flames; the Islamic Movement declared, resorting to the regular mantra, that the Jews are endangering the al-Aqsa Mosque; following prayers, a barrage of stones was hurled at worshipers near the Western Wall; the Palestinians charged both in the local and international media that this was an Israeli provocation.

 

The police, who were instructed to hide their presence in order "not to irritate" and "not to give Arafat a pretext to start a fire" turned to Waqf leaders and asked that they calm down the rioting youth. After about 25 minutes, "tensions were gone" and the stoning of the empty Western Wall area ended. Would a different policy towards Palestinian provocations have led to a different story? The facts show this is the case.

 

In March 2001, the first Sharon government was sworn in. Growing Palestinian terror was in the midst of the "Oslo Intifada"; meanwhile, massive excavations that erased any trace of Jewish history were being undertaken at Temple Mount; the Palestinian Authority's "security apparatuses" were operating in Jerusalem; Faisal Husseini conducted himself as a "chief commissioner" who carries out Arafat's orders out of the Orient House at the heart of the State of Israel's capital.

 

Quite a few security experts and police officers, still under the threatening shadow of the Or Commission, and still affected by the dispirited Barak government, warned: If the police are sent in, in a bid to end the throwing of stones, people will be killed on Temple Mount. This was precisely Arafat's wish – to turn the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a religious conflict pitting Jews against Muslims.

 

The officials recommended continuing the current arrangement, while showing determination. The implication: The continued stoning of Jewish worshippers and their banishment from the Western Wall. This bad situation had to be changed.

  

Government must stop apologizing

Remember the movie "Revolving Doors?" As it turns out, just like in the movie, in reality too a different policy we adopted in a familiar scene (youth, Waqf, incitement, tempers flaring, stones, and so on and so forth) changed the rest of the story.

 

In the spring of 2001, once the first stone was hurled, large police forces immediately stormed Temple Mount, without weapons or rubber-coated bullets, removed the rioters from stoning range, and worked to bring those involved to justice.

 

The police also ordered the Waqf to end the excavation work, closed the Mount's gates to trucks that were removing earth and bringing in construction materials, and forbade any changes at Temple Mount, including maintenance work, without first securing a permit. The police started to enforce its orders. The stoning ceased almost immediately.

 

Of course, the policy adopted in Jerusalem cannot be isolated from the determined anti-terror policy adopted by the government in the years 2001-2002, particularly following the Park Hotel suicide bombing. In all matters of internal security, the police were instructed to enforce the law with determination and fairness.

 

The Orient House and all its cancerous branches were closed down; Palestinian "security apparatus" were limited, until they were paralyzed; the offices of the al-Quds University's administration were closed down until Chairman Nusseibah signed a pledge to end any supervision and terror-sponsoring at the offices; police units in civilian clothing started frequenting Temple Mount in order to pave the way for renewed visits by Jews.

 

It goes without saying that the Islamic Movement did everything it could in order to test Israel with the familiar script: Youth, incitement, tempers flaring, demonstrations, protests, stones.

 

They started to construct the Shihab al-Din mosque in Nazareth in defiance of the Christian Church of the Annunciation; they attempted to stir up emotions and riot during "Land Day" demonstrations and in events commemorating October 200o, and back then we also heard words of incitement to violence from Sheikh Salah similar to those we heard this week in Nazareth. "Those who play with fire – will be burned."

 

They went with their script, and we went with ours: Strictly ensuring the law is being enforced and never giving in to threats. The result: Israeli sovereignty gradually returned to Jerusalem; the Temple Mount's gates were reopened to Jewish visits; the Islamic Movement kept a low profile for some time and its leader was sent to prison.

 

I provided great detail of the above-mentioned story for the benefit of one reader, Defense Minister Peretz, who apparently didn't see the movie, and therefore is recommending that the government adopt the capitulating script. Chronicle of more terror foretold.

 

Following the Lebanon defeat, and while Qassam rockets continue to land in Sderot – Israel's power of deterrence is "down," like a defeated body that can and should be punched again. The Mugrabi gate is merely a pretext. In order to shape the story in a manner that is favorable to us, we must do what needs to be done for the sake of public welfare at the Mugrabi Gate.

 

The Israel government in its entirety must stop apologizing and ensure that both the letter and spirit of the law are being followed, and never ever capitulate in the face of threats backed by the culture of terror. Only one possibility is worse than violence – capitulation in the face of violence.

 

The writer is a former minister of internal security and currently a research fellow at the International Counter-Terrorism Policy Institute