Sympathy for Terrorists at New York's Paper of Record

The New York Times.  Do I love to hate them?  No, I just hate them.  The Times's chronic anti-semitism, which dates back to the WWII era, has led them to become soft apologists for terrorists.  First, for terrorists who act against Israel, and by extension, all terrorists.  No where is this more apparent than in the headline shown in this screen grab, which sympathises with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev: http://dailycaller.com/2013/04/19/new-york-times-sympathy-for-the-devil/#ixzz2QwNJfnVK  (Mysteriously, the headline has been changed, which is why my link is to a blog showing the screengrab.)

We have also seen this phenomenon in action when they refer to Guantamo as a "political prison," implying that its prisoners are political prisoners, as described in this blog: http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/04/the-new-york-times-declares-al-qaeda-membership-legitimate-political-activity/

Perhaps that puts some context on Times Magazine covers like the one in this screenshot (again, the headline and main graphic have been changed on the Times's website, and are now availably only through screengrabs that document it, like this one)  http://www.israellycool.com/2013/03/17/ben-ehrenreich-and-the-ny-times-paint-false-picture-of-terror-and-violence-advocates/

The One-State Solution – Why Not? 

The New York Times editorial page has been publishing pieces advocating a one-state solution in Israel and the West Bank for some time.  Recently, Saree Makdisi and Joseph Levine graced the Times’s Op-Ed pages, and perhaps most infamously, in 2009, an OpEd by Muammar Qaddafi put forth the same proposition.  (You can read Qaddafi’s column here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/opinion/22qaddafi.html?_r=0.)  

To Americans, Jews and non-Jews, who were raised with the American ideal of the “melting pot,” or, in other metaphors, the “tossed salad,” or “beautiful mosaic” this may sound like the perfect solution.  Two peoples want the same land, why shouldn’t they share it?  Why can’t they live together, the way that the different ethnic groups that make up the United States do?  Ms. Makdisi asserted in her Times piece that in a single, binational state, “what [Jews] will gain . . .  is the right to live in peace.”

The fact that this proposal was advocated by Qaddafi ought to be enough to give one pause.  But setting that point aside, one way that we can assess the possibility of success for this proposal is by turning to history.  Throughout history, as long as Jews have lived in Muslim majority states, we, like any other religious minority in those states, were forced to live with so-called dhimmi status.  This was a second-class status, mandated by Islamic law, that allowed religious minorities to live in Muslim majority countries, but with many political restrictions, subject to a special dhimmi tax, and always subject to persecution.  

“But that is the past,” the melting-pot advocates will cry. “In the current times, we have all moved beyond that.  Modern Muslims would live in equality with Jews in this binational state.”  To see how preposterous this suggestion is, one only has to look at the current situation of Egypt’s Coptic Christians. 

Egypt is a U.S. ally, perhaps one of our closest Muslim allies.  After the overthrow of Mubarak, it held ostensibly democratic elections, the product of which was the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood to power.  Since that time, the persecution of women has increased and religious minorities have come under fire.  In October of 2011, between 25 and 35 Coptic Christians were killed by Egyptian police attempting to disperse a peaceful protest against religious suppression.  (You can read about it here: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/279657/situation-worsens-egypts-coptic-christians-kurt-j-werthmuller.)  Just last Friday, four more Christians were killed in sectarian violence, and on Sunday, the police attacked mourners at the funeral for those killed.  (You can read about it here: http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2013/04/07/funeral-for-killed-copts/ and here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/07/us-egypt-clashes-idUSBRE93503A20130407.)  And, of course, let’s not forget the reaction of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood to the recent Declaration from the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women.  The Brotherhood denounced the statement for advocating, among other things, to raise the minimum age of marriage, grant equality to gays and lesbians, and provide contraception.  (You can read the official brotherhood response here: http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=30731.) 

A bi-national state would mean a return to dhimmi status, and persecution, as soon as the Muslim population outnumbered the Jewish population (or possibly sooner, due to the fractionalized political system).  Anyone who is familiar with the history of the region knows this, that is why it is not being advanced as a serious solution by anyone of any sense.  But no one wants to articulate it, because to do so would appear bigoted.  U.S. liberals need to understand that co-existence in “Israstine,” as Qaddafi put it, is simply not an option.  

UPDATE: Just today, 4/18/13,  the Times has published an Op-Ed by Marci Shore, which seems at first to be about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and pretends that its topic is a hero of that uprising, but ends with this line: "a single-nation state is never a good thing.”  This transparent advocacy for a bi-national state, with all that that entails, now under the guise of Holocaust Rememberance, is completely revolting.  Just when I did not think the Times could top its past antisemitism, sadly, I was wrong.  

UPDATE: 5/11/13.  This morning I said to my husband something I never thought I would say: "there was a good editorial in the Times yesterday. . . ."  I was referring to Manan Ahmed Asif's editorial on Pakistan.  If one wants to know what a bi-national state in Israel will look like by the end of this century, just read Asif's description of what is happening now in Pakistan.  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/opinion/pakistans-tyrannical-majority.html?_r=1& 

Ha'aretz and Israel's Imaginary Ethnic Cleansing

I am an upper middle class woman living in a New York suburb.  I am a US citizen and English is my native language.  I am in the fortunate position of having access to the best medical care that money can buy.  And still, I have had medications prescribed for me without being made fully aware of the side effects.

Why?  Well sometimes doctors are rushed and don't take the time to fully explain all the possible side effects of medications.  Sometimes doctors are arrogant and don't think they need to do so.  Sometimes doctors are forgetful and there are oversights.

These phenomena will obviously be compounded in a clinic-like setting, especially when combined with a language barrier.  So is it true, as Ha'arezt reported in March, that some Ethiopian women were prescribed and administered Depo-Provera without being fully aware of what the medication was?  Well, unfortunately, it probably is true.  Was this deliberate ethnic cleansing?  Doubtful.

Think about this: Why would the Israeli government pay to bring these people from Ethiopia to Israel, footing the bill for not only the travel but also for absorption (olim get a generous package from the government including financial assistance, rent assistance, tuition assistance, and more) as well as any social services they will need for the foreseeable future, only to commit genocide on them?  This doesn't even make any freakin' sense!  The proposition that Israel went out of its way to bring people to the country only to forcibly sterilize them is completely illogical.  And contrary to the initial reports by Ha'aretz, the government never admitted that this happened.  Rather, upon allegations that some women were receiving Depo-Provera without being fully made aware of what it was, the government took remedial measures to ensure that, if such incidents had happened, they would not be repeated.  You can read the actual facts here: http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=55&x_article=2411

But Israel's detractors are determined to see only the bad.  So much so that they are determined to believe that the government has done something so completely illogical.  And despite Ha'aretz's retraction, almost a month later, this allegation is still being circulated.

Ha'aretz needs to understand that Israel's detractors are waiting with bated breath to pounce on sensationalist stories like this.  This is not to say that Ha'aretz should not expose racism where it occurs. But before printing allegations such as this, they ought to make damn sure that what they are printing is true.

The Real Surprise at the U.N.

So Britain, France and three other European countries are recalling their ambassadors from Israel.  This is no shock, really.  What is astonishing, however, is that they don't seem to realize the extent to which their own actions encouraged the very settlement construction they are now protesting.  

That Mahmoud Abbas's gambit at the UN last week would be successful was really never in doubt.  After all, anyone who has been paying any attention to the UN realizes that it is now basically controlled by the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.  This is illustrated, for example, by an issue that had nothing to do with Israel -- Ban Ki-Moon's statement in September of this year about the maker of the pseudo-inflammatory film Innocence of Muslims.  Ban said:  "When some people use this freedom of expression to provoke or humiliate some others' values and beliefs, then this cannot be protected in such a way." (Reported at  http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/19/us-protests-un-idUSBRE88I1CW20120919.)  Such a statement, advocating an abridgment of free speech when the speech happens to offend Muslims, can only be viewed as a concession to the OIC.  And no one could possibly think that an organization that included the late Colonel Moammar Khadafi's Libya on something called a HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL could possibly be an objective body.  

Yes, passage of Abbas's resolution was a given.  What was shocking, however, was the lopsidedness of the vote.  Only a single country in all of Europe, the Czech Republic, voted "No."  Every other European nation, including those now condemning the settlements, either abstained or voted "Yes,"  despite the fact that the resolution was nothing more than an obvious attempt by the Palestinian Authority to circumvent the peace process and to avoid having to make such basic concessions as renouncing violence and acknowledging that Israel has a right to exist as the world's only Jewish nation.  

An often-repeated manta is that when Israel takes unilateral actions, this weakens moderates on the Palestinian side and strengthens the extremist factions.  Few seems to acknowledge that this works both ways.  When Palestinians take unilateral action, this weakens the Israeli left and moderates, and strengthens the extremists on the Israeli side.  And when Palestinians take unilateral action with the world's blessing, well, the Israeli left does not stand a chance.  

Virtually all of Europe has turned its back on Israel, and the U.S., under President Obama, has been, at best, fickle in its support.  As much as it is nice to know that least two countries, the Czech Republic and Canada, support Israel, neither is a military powerhouse.  With the rest of the world abandoning it, Israel must stand on its own.  No wonder, then, that the extremists is Israel have taken hold, and that Israel feels that it must take whatever actions it deems necessary to protect itself -- including connecting Jerusalem to the nearby settlement town of Ma'ale Adumim by building up the area in between.  

As for Ban's pronouncement that the settlements are a "fatal blow" to peace, well, the fatal blow came last Thursday in Ban's own organization.  By Friday there was simply no peace process left to safeguard, and Israel acted accordingly.  

The More Things Change . . . .

I have never been one for blogging, but the events of the past few weeks have compelled me to put my thoughts into the world, and to do so in a format that allows me to use more than 140 characters.

This past week's events at the UN were a complete travesty.  Not one word in the speech that Abbas made to the General Assembly on Thursday was true.  Abbas accused Israel of war crimes and tried to portray himself as a peace-seeker.  In doing so he apparently feigned amnesia over the ten-month settlement freeze in 2010, which was intended to be a window for peace negotiations, and which he squandered away.  He completely ignored the events of 2000, when, at Camp David, the Israeli Prime Minister offered Palestinians statehood in 90% of the West Bank and 100% of Gaza, with a capital in East Jerusalem, and compensation for displaced Palestinians "refugees," which offer was refused in favor of the beginning of the Second Intifada.  He completely ignored the fact that, after the failure of the 2000 offer, Israel unilaterally left Gaza, allowing Palestinians self-rule there, only to have Gaza taken over by Iran's proxy Hamas, and used as a launching pad for years' of military assaults on Israel's south.  He referred to the UN's own 1947 vote to partition the land into two states as "Al-Nakba" -- the disaster.

He received a standing ovation, and a tremendous majority of votes.  Many of the same nations that only a few days ago affirmed Israel's right to self-defense either abstained or voted for his position, in spite of his speech labeling Israel as the aggressor in the most recent Gaza conflict.  138 nations voted to allow Abbas, as ostensible leader of the Palestinians, to claim statehood in the West Bank and Gaza, without regard to the fact that Abbas's party, Fatah, was violently kicked out of Gaza by the rival Abbas now claims solidarity with, Hamas, and without asking him or his party to renounce violence or to recognize their neighbor, Israel.

It seems that not much has changed since 1939.  Jew-haters make up lies about Jews, use those lies as justification to kill Jews, and the world stands by and does nothing.  For the first time I feel that we Jews are on our own.  If we are not for ourselves, who will be for us?  The answer to that is clear.