Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Britain

Shameful: After debate, Oxford Union votes Israel is ‘apartheid’ state committing ‘genocide’

2024-11-30

[IsraelTimes] Controversial event at prestigious UK university results in 278 votes in favor, 59 votes against; Arab Israeli speaker removed after he calls audience ‘terrorist supporters’

A controversial debate held by the Oxford Union that discussed whether Israel is an "apartheid state responsible for genocide" devolved into a yelling match between speakers and attendees on Thursday. The event took place under tight security, as protesters demonstrated outside the building.

After the debate, the union voted on the proposition, "This House Believes Israel is an apartheid state responsible for genocide," with 278 votes in favor and 59 votes against.

The Oxford Union is a student society located in Oxford, England, and is made up almost entirely of students at the prestigious Oxford University, widely regarded as one of the best institutes for higher education in the world.

Thursday’s debate featured several prominent speakers on both sides of the topic, including pro-Israel advocates Natasha Hausdorff, a British lawyer, Jonathan Sacerdoti, a British journalist who covers the UK and Europa
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
for i24 News, as well as Arab Israeli activist Yoseph Haddad, and former Hamas
Hamas

..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
member-turned Israeli spy Mosab Hassan Yusef.

Arguing against Israel were US political scientist and anti-Israel activist Norman Finkelstein, Israeli-American activist and author Miko Peled, Paleostinian-American author Susan Abulhawa, and Mohammed El-Kurd, a Paleostinian writer and poet.

According to Oxford University’s student newspaper, Cherwell, the debate featured intense heckling and argument, with one audience member calling Sacerdoti a "sick motherfucker" and a "genocidal maniac" while the journalist was giving his position.

Cherwell reported that Peled said during the debate, "What happened on October 7th was not terrorism — these were acts of heroism of a people who were oppressed," and called for a Paleostinian state "from the river to the sea."

The ongoing war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre, which saw some 3,000 gunnies burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, mostly civilians, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.

For her part, Abulhawa told the crowd that she "came to speak directly to Zionists: we let you into our homes when your own countries turned you away. You killed and robbed and burned and looted our lives, you carved out our hearts."

The Paleostinian poet El-Kurd argued that Zionism is "irredeemable and indefensible," and said that if the union voted in favor of calling Israel an apartheid state committing genocide, "it means that this body is catching up to the moral clarity of the global majority. It is about time and about 70 years too late."

Speaking against the proposition, meanwhile, Haddad was kicked out of the chamber for lack of decorum after calling the audience "terrorist supporters" when they booed him during his argument. As he was escorted out, the Arab-Israeli activist put on a shirt with the face of slain Hezbollah leader His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
...The late, lamented satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...>
with the caption, "Your terrorist is dead."

Pro-Israel speaker Hausdorff called the debate a "dark moment in the Oxford Union’s history," and said that the accusation of genocide against Israel is a "slur being alleged against the real victims of genocide in this case."

Yusef, the disowned eldest son of the co-founder of Hamas who has become a pro-Israel activist, reportedly told the crowd, "Paleostinians are the most pathetic people on planet Earth," and insisted that Paleostinians are "a false identity"

At the end of the debate, the union voted in favor of the resolution 278 to 59, officially labeling Israel as apartheid and genocidal.

The union has a track record of contentious debates on Israel. In 1962, for instance, it debated whether "The Creation of the State of Israel is One of the Mistakes of the Century." Decades later, the students were still debating whether, as a 2008 motion put it, "This house believes that the State of Israel has a right to exist."

Over the years, union members have also overwhelmingly backed motions accusing Israel’s supporters of "stifling Western debate."

But anti-Israel activists haven’t had it their way on every occasion. In 2015, for instance, the US lawyer Alan Dershowitz won a debate on whether the BDS movement against Israel was wrong.

Two years before that, the union rejected a motion that argued Israel is "a force for good in the Middle East," although pro-Israel students delighted in the narrowness of their defeat, suggesting that "to get nearly 40 percent support for Israel at a British university in this day and age is a triumph."

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-Great Cultural Revolution

Bernie Turned Progressive Movement Into ‘Rotting Corpse’

2022-11-20

This is what the left let happen to them. This was the only part of national politics that represented them, and what happened? Bernie and the Squad sold out. Shockingly cheaply. They joined the ~~Sith~~ DC establishment. The man should be asking "who paid you, Bernie?"

"There is always money for war. You never hear political leaders say they can't go to war because the country can't afford it. They claim not to have money for the poor, homeless and hungry, but war? It's never a problem."

-- David Icke

Space Lizardoid conspiracy theorist David Icke is a good match for Israel-hating Red Diaper Baby Norman Finkelstein, PhD, whose rant against Stalinist Bernie Sanders is much approved by Progressive comedian Jimmy Dore in this attack from the historically corrupt far left on the equally corrupt but slightly different far left. Enjoy — remembering along the way that Stalin partnered with Hitler to divide Poland before Stalin pivoted to partner with the Allies to divide Germany.

Point of information: I’m sorry that we lost half of your headline, Spike the Hairy6811, but for some reason Rantburg cuts off anything that follows a double quotation mark. Please use single quotes instead, or use two single quotes if you really like that look. If you put what it should have been in comments, one of the moderators will add it back.

—for the moderators,
trailing wife

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Britain

UK Labour Antisemitism: Turmoil As Top Lawyer Departs, Contentious Retweet

2019-07-06

Another own goal as Britain’s left wing hurtles down into insignificance. May our own soon follow, both to be replaced by honourable loyal oppositions.

[Jpost] The UK Labour party's response to antisemitism is in turmoil after its top lawyer stepped down from his role on Friday, The Independent reported.

Gordon Nardell QC, a key figure hired by the party last year to help tackle Labour's disturbing antisemitism problem, added to the renewed pressure the party was facing this week, following a contentious retweet by the party's incoming head of membership, Jules Rutherford on Thursday.

Rutherford, who is due to start the job on Monday, shared a tweet by 'Jack Jazz' which claimed antisemitism allegations against party members are being used as a "political weapon" to "smear" party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

The tweet included a video in which Professor Norman Finkelstein described the antisemitism claims as "witch-hunt hysteria" and was subsequently removed from Rutherford's feed following a request for comment from Labour by PoliticsHome.

Labour has been in damage control for some time over rampant antisemitism allegations and will now be forced to find a new lawyer to defend the party, following Mr Nardell’s departure.

Party sources told The Independent that a documentary which is set to be aired on the BBC's Panorama program is said to contain further damaging allegations about antisemitism. This, according to the sources, may have led Nardell to quit.

The documentary has the party leadership "running around in panic," sources quoted by The Independent said.

"Gordon Nardell’s tenure as General Consel will be remarkable only for the absolute chaos and political manipulation within the Governance and Legal Unit that took place on his watch," a spokesperson for the Jewish Labour movement (JLM) said.

"The party leadership’s total failure to address anti-Jewish racism has led to the EHRC [Equality and Human Rights Commission] launching a statutory investigation into institutional racism following JLM’s referral. It is unsurprising that he has now resigned."

"The leadership must be held accountable for the culture of harassment, intimidation and causal racism that has gripped the Party, and follow Nardell’s example."

JLM chair Mike Katz tweeted earlier on Friday that the retweet by Labour's incoming head of membership, Jules Rutherford, was "just awful, but who's surprised?"

"This is why EHRC are investigating the Party for institutional anti-Jewish racism," he said. "In today's party, you virtue-signal by being casually racist." Implying the party's culture is such, that in order to be accepted by other members antisemitic comments are required of its members.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Debunking BDS

2012-03-06

Supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement are on the defensive.

Supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement are on the defensive. A surprisingly candid interview on video with anti-Israel guru Norman Finkelstein at the beginning of last month has sparked a flurry of soul-searching on far-left websites such as +972 and Mondoweiss and among left-wing ideologues such as M.J. Rosenberg, senior foreign policy fellow at Media Matters Action Network, and Haaretz columnist Bradley Burston.

In the video, which went viral first on YouTube and later, after being removed to contain damage to BDS, on Vimeo, Finkelstein declared BDS to be a failure.

Though BDS activists tout the movements many successes, in reality its a cult where the guru says We have all these victories and everyone nods their head, he said.

Finkelstein went on to explain why BDS has failed so miserably. The movements duplicity and disingenuousness in hiding the fact that a large part of its membership wants to eliminate Israel made it impossible for BDS to reach a broad public.

Finkelsteins comments have resulted in a reevaluation of the entire BDS movement on the Left. And it comes at a particularly opportune time as BDS activists on campuses around the world mark Israel Apartheid Week.

For instance, an article titled Boycotting Israel means denying its right to exist that first appeared last Wednesday on the +972 blog has generated a lively debate. In their zeal to attack author Noam Weiner, an Israeli doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan Law School, critics have in the process proved Weiner and Finkelstein right. In trying to support BDS, many ended up expressing their support for Israels demise as a Jewish state by championing the right of return for millions of Palestinians and their offspring, who were forced or chose to leave Israel after the War of Independence.

Meanwhile, moderates such as Rosenberg have tried to differentiate between BDS against Israel as a whole and a BDS campaign that focuses solely on the West Bank. Meretz, a self-proclaimed Zionist political party, makes such as distinction. And for many Jewish organizations in the US one can support a targeted boycott of Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria and still remain within the big tent of Jewish consensus.

But even this more moderate form of BDS is problematic.

Modern economies are highly complex. How directly does a company have to be involved in the development of Judea and Samaria to justify a boycott against it? Would paying taxes constitute support for the occupation? How about firms run by people who serve reserve duty? Any attempts to direct a boycott at Judea and Samaria inevitably result in a boycott against Israel.

More substantively, a boycott, even one supposedly directed only at the settlements, ignores the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It ignores Palestinian incitement to violence, which goes on to this day. It ignores the broad support among Palestinians for Hamas and other terrorist groups that aspire to destroy Israel, even with pre-1967 lines. A BDS campaign, even one that only targets occupation, strengthens the most radical elements within Palestinian society by refraining from placing at least some of the blame for the conflict on Palestinian shoulders.

And as blogger Jon Haber, creator of the Divest This! website, has pointed out, BDS activity tends to undermine the basic values of organizations that use it. When, for instance, the British National Union of Journalists is asked to join BDS, it members are expected to suspend their journalistic objectivity to single out Israel for censure.

University professors are asked to disregard the notion of academic freedom to use their positions to silence Israeli colleagues. Businesses and co-ops are asked to forgo their right to pursue the best products at the lowest prices to punish the Jewish state. And mainline Protestant churchgoers are asked to compromise their religious faith, as if God Himself were aligned with the BDS movement.

Finkelsteins candid interview has sparked an important reassessment of the entire BDS movement. Let us hope that the soul-searching raging on the Left leads to more honesty and less of the duplicity and disingenuousness that has characterized the BDS movement to date.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Israel: An Arab-free Jewish theocracy?

2010-10-12

[Arab News] THE powers that be within Israel are showing their true bigoted racist colors. On Sunday, the Israeli Cabinet agreed to a new law obliging new non-Jewish immigrants to first swear allegiance to Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state." The concept is certainly original when one of the building blocks of democracy is equal rights for all citizens irrespective of their ethnicity or religious beliefs. Instead, the oath should surely read "a Jewish and theocratic state."

Moreover, the law is discriminatory in that it presupposes that all Jews are inherently loyal to Israel, which is far being the case. Members of the orthodox Naturei Karta sect believe Israel's very existence is a sin while a large proportion of the most influential pro-Palestinian activists are Jews.

Norman Finkelstein, a Jewish political scientist and author, was barred entry to Israel because of his views and the Jewish Israeli conductor pianist Daniel Barenboim was awarded a Palestinian passport for his support. In recent weeks, an all "Jewish boat" has made an attempt to break the siege of Gaza.

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Fifth Column

Jewish Professor Declares Support for Hezbollah in Lebanon

2008-02-26

CHICAGO An ousted American political science professor who believes some Jews have exploited the legacy of the Holocaust recently expressed his support for the terrorist organization Hezbollah.

Norman Finkelstein, who resigned from DePaul University last fall amid criticism of his opinions on the Holocaust, told Lebanese television that his view of Hezbollah is "rarely heard" in the United States.

"I have no problem saying that I do want to express solidarity with them, and I'm not going to be a coward and a hypocrite about it," Finkelstein told Future TV. "I don't care about Hezbollah as a political organization. I don't know much about their politics and anyhow, it's irrelevant."

The Jan. 20, 2008, interview was conducted in Arabic; Finkelstein replied in English.

Finkelsteins support for Hezbollah would be illegal if he were helping raise funds for the organization, said Richard Miniter, a terrorism analyst with the Hudson Institute. If terrorists are able to use his name to fundraise in any way, that would be illegal, said Miniter, who added that only Al Qaeda has killed more Americans than Hezbollah.

Finkelstein, who is the son of Holocaust survivors, said in the televised interview that Jews had to resist the Communists in World War II and the Lebanese people will have to make the same kind of choice about accepting or resisting Hezbollah. "It's a choice that the Lebanese have to make who they want to be their leaders, who they want to represent them."

Israel and the United States are resisting Hezbollah's control of the region, Finkelstein said. "That's the problem," he said. "If Hezbollah laid down its arms and said, 'We will do whatever the Americans say,' you wouldn't have a war.

"That's true, but you would also be the slaves of the Americans. I have to respect those who refuse to be slaves."

He said Israel must suffer a defeat to lead to peace in the Middle East. Asked to comment on this report, Finkelstein said he was only willing to speak live on air.

Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard Law School professor and supporter of Israel, said Finkelsteins comments show that he is anti-American. If its not literal treason, it certainly is treason in spirit, Dershowitz told FOXNews.com. He belongs with Hezbollah."

Finkelstein is supporting an organization that brags about killing Americans, he added.This is a man who supports an organization that recently called for terrorist attacks against Jews and Americans all across the world, Dershowitz said.

Click here to visit Finkelstein's Web site.

Finkelstein initially fought DePaul, a private Catholic university in Chicago, on its decision last September to cancel his courses and deny him tenure after six years as a faculty member. He threatened to risk arrest by appearing on campus, but negotiations with university officials led to a peaceful exit.

Dershowitz, who weighted in on Finkelstein's tenure process, said Finkelsteins support for Hezbollah vindicates the decision by DePaul to deny his tenure. To have an American citizen endorsing the views of a group of Iranian-funded Lebanese murderers, it shows you that the biggest front in the War on Terror is the propaganda war, Miniter said. Days like today, it looks like were losing.

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Home Front: Politix

Barack Obama's Middle East Expert - interesting

2008-02-01

Links in the original article.

By Ed Lasky

Barack Obama's real thinking about Israel and the Middle East continues to be an enigma. The words he chose in an address to AIPAC create a different impression than the composition of his foreign policy advisory team. Several advisors have evidenced a history of suspicion and worse toward Israel. One of his advisors in particular, Robert Malley, clearly warrants attention, as does the reasoning that led him to being chosen by Barack Obama.

A little family history may be in order to understand the genesis of Robert Malley's views. Normally, one should be reluctant in exploring a person's family background -- after all, who would want to be held responsible for the sins of one's father? However, when close relatives share a strong current of ideological affinity, and when a father has a commanding persona, it behooves a researcher to inquire a bit into the role of family in forming views. That said, Robert Malley has a very interesting father.

His father Simon Malley was born to a Syrian family in Cairo and at an early age found his métier in political journalism. He participated in the wave of anti-imperialist and nationalist ideology that was sweeping the Third World. He wrote thousands of words in support of struggle against Western nations. In Paris, he founded the journal Afrique Asie; he and his magazine became advocates for "liberation" struggles throughout the world, particularly for the Palestinians.

Simon Malley loathed Israel and anti-Israel activism became a crusade for him-as an internet search would easily show. He spent countless hours with Yasser Arafat and became a close friend of Arafat.
He was, according to Daniel Pipes, a sympathizer of the Palestinian Liberation Organization --- and this was when it was at the height of its terrorism wave against the West. His efforts were so damaging to France that President Valerie d'Estaing expelled him from the country.

Malley has seemingly followed in his father's footsteps: he represents the next generation of anti-Israel activism. Through his writings he has served as a willing propagandist, bending the truth (and more) to serve an agenda that is marked by anti-Israel bias; he heads a group of Middle East policy advisers for a think-tank funded (in part) by anti-Israel billionaire activist George Soros; and now is on the foreign policy staff of a leading Presidential contender. Each step up the ladder seems to be a step closer towards his goal of empowering radicals and weakening the ties between American and our ally Israel.

Robert Malley's writings strike me as being akin to propaganda. One notable example is an op-ed that was published in the New York Times (Fictions About the Failure at Camp David). The column indicted Israel for not being generous enough at Camp David and blamed the failure of the talks on the Israelis.

Malley has repeated this line of attack in numerous op-eds over the years, often co-writing with Hussein Agha, a former adviser to Yasser Arafat (see, for example, Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors ). He was also believed to be the chief source for an article by Deborah Sontag that whitewashed Arafat's role in the collapse of the peace process, an article that has been widely criticized as riddled with errors and bias.

Malley is a revisionist and his views are sharply at odds with the views of others who participated at Camp David, including Ambassador Dennis Ross and President Bill Clinton. Malley's myth-making has been peddled in the notably anti-Israel magazine, Counterpunch and by Norman Finkelstein, the failed academic recently denied tenure at DePaul University . Malley's Camp David propaganda has also become fodder for Palestinians, Arab rejectionists, and anti-Israel activists across the world.

His story of the talks is also plain wrong.

Dennis Ross had this to say regarding the failure of Camp David when he laid the blame on Yasser Arafat and Palestinian leadership:

....Fundamentally I do not believe he can end the conflict. We had one critical clause in this agreement, and that clause was, this is the end of the conflict. Arafat's whole life has been governed by struggle and a cause... for him to end the conflict is to end himself.

...Barak was able to reposition Israel internationally. Israel was seen as having demonstrated unmistakably it wanted peace, and the reason it wasn't ... achievable was because Arafat wouldn't accept it.

President Clinton echoed these remarks, elsewhere:

So a couple of days before I leave office, Arafat says, calls to tell me what a great man I am. And I just said, "No, I'm not. On this I'm a failure, and you made me a failure."

At the conclusion of Camp David, Clinton made these points, stressing that Israeli leader Ehud Barak had gone the extra mile to reach peace with the Palestinians:

-Prime Minister Barak showed particular courage, vision, and an understanding of the historical importance of this moment. Chairman Arafat made it clear that he too remains committed to the path of peace.

-Prime Minister Barak took some very bold decisions...

-I will say again, we made progress on all the core issues; we made really significant progress on many of them. The Palestinian teams worked hard on a lot of these areas. But I think it is fair to say that at this moment in time, maybe because they had been preparing for it longer, maybe because they had thought through it more, that the prime minister moved forward more from his initial position than Chairman Arafat on -- particularly surrounding the questions of Jerusalem...

-... not so much as a criticism of Chairman Arafat, because this is really hard and had never been done before, but in praise of Barak. He came in knowing that he was going to have to take bold steps and he did it, and I think you should look at it more as a positive toward him than as a condemnation of the Palestinian side...

- I would be making a mistake not to praise Barak, because I think he took a big risk, and I think it's sparked already in Israel a real debate, which is moving Israeli public opinion toward the conditions that will make peace. And so I thought that was important, and I think it deserves to be acknowledged. (Clinton press conference, July 25, 2000)

Was Malley so central to the peace process that he knew something that escaped the attention of our Middle East Envoy and our President? When one reads Dennis Ross's account of his years of trying to bring peace to the region, The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace, one can question just how central Malley was to the Camp David negotiations.*

Malley has written a range of pieces over the years that reveal an agenda at work that should give pause to those Obama supporters who truly care about peace in the Middle Peace and the fate of our ally Israel.

Playing Into Sharon's Hands: which absolves Arafat of the responsibility to restrain terrorists and blames Israel for terrorism. He defends Arafat and hails him as

..the first Palestinian leader to recognize Israel, relinquish the objective of regaining all of historic Palestine and negotiate for a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 boundaries. And he remains for now the only Palestinian with the legitimacy to sell future concessions to his people.

Rebuilding a Damaged Palestine: which blames Israel's security operations for weakening Palestinian security forces (absurd on its face: terrorists filled the ranks of so-called Palestinian security forces-which, in any case, never tried to prevent terrorism) and calls for international forces to restrain the Israelis

Making the Best of Hamas's Victory: which called for international aid to be showered upon a Hamas-led government and for international engagement with Hamas (a group that makes clear in its Charter, its schools, and its violence its intent to destroy Israel). Malley also makes an absurd assertion: that Hamas' policies and Israeli policies are mirror images of each other.

Avoiding Failure with Hamas: which again calls for aid to flow to a Hamas-led government and even goes so far as to suggest that failure to extend aid could cause an environmental or health catastrophe-such as a human strain of the avian flu virus!

How to Curb the Tension in Gaza: which criticizes Israel's for its actions to recover Gilad Shalit who was kidnapped and is being held hostage in the Gaza Strip. He and co-writer Gareth Evans call Israel's actions collective punishment" in "violation of international law".

Forget Pelosi: What About Syria?: where Malley calls for outreach to Syria, despite its ties to Hezbollah, Hamas, and the terrorists committing murder in Iraq; believes it is unreasonable to call for Syria to cut ties with Hezbollah, break with Hamas, or alienate Iran before negotiations; he believes a return of the Golan Heights and engagement with the West will somehow miraculously lead the Syrian regime to take these steps -- after they get all they want.

Containing a Shiite Symbol of Hope: that advocated engagement with the fiercely anti-American Iraqi Moqtada al-Sadr, who has been responsible for the murder of many Americans and Iraqis as the leader of the terrorist group, the Mahdi Army. He also has very close ties to Iran.

Middle East Triangle: (co-written with former Arafat advisor Hussein Agha) calls for Hamas and Fatah to reconcile, join forces, and to frustrate, in their words, Israel's attempts to "perpetuate Palestinian geographic and political division". Then Hamas will grant Abbas power to make a political deal with Israel that will bring peace. Noah Pollack of Commentary Magazine noting, as Malley habitually fails to do, Hamas intends to destroy Israel, eviscerated this op-ed.

The U.S. Must Look to its Own Mideast Interests: (co-written with Aaron David Miller) which advocates a radically different approach towards the Middle East which, in their words, does not "follow Israel's lead" and encompasses engagement with Syria (despite problems with Lebanon and their support for Hezbollah) and Hamas (regardless of its failure to recognize Israel or renounce violence).

A New Middle East: which asserted Hezbollah's attacks on Israel and the kidnapping of Israelis, which sparked the Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006, were motivated by Hezbollah's desire to retrieve Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails and were a response to pressure being exerted on its allies-Syria and Iran.

Robert Malley also testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in February, 2004. In that appearance he called for the Road Map to be cast aside because incremental measures intended to build trust were unworkable. He advocated that a comprehensive settlement plan be imposed on the parties with the backing of the international community, including Arab and Moslem states. He anticipated that Israel would object with "cries of unfair treatment" but counseled the plan be put in place regardless of such objections; he also suggested that waiting for a "reliable Palestinian partner' was unnecessary.

This is merely a sample of Malley's views -- which are focused on disengaging from our ally Israel (whose lead America should not "follow") and engaging with and, in some cases financially supporting, the likes of Syria, Moqtada al-Sadr, Hezbollah and Hamas. His ideology is radically at odds with American foreign policy as it has been practiced by two generations of Presidents -- both Democrats and Republicans -- over the years. This is the type of advocacy Robert Malley has been pursuing in the years since the end of the Clinton Administration and from his perch at the International Crisis Group -- an organization that may share his agenda.

The International Crisis Group

Robert Malley is the Director of the Middle East/North Africa Program at the International Crisis Group (ICG). Given the impressive title of the group, one might expect it to have along and impressive pedigree -- say long the lines of the well-regarded Council of Foreign Relations. In fact, the group is rather small and it has a short pedigree. More importantly, it has ties to George Soros. Soros is a man who has supported a wide variety of groups that have shown a propensity to criticize America and Israel; a man who has made clear his goal is to break the close bonds between America and Israel ; supported the views of Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer whose work on the issue of the "Israel Lobby" has been widely criticized for factual inaccuracies, shoddy research, and has been called "anti-Semitic" in the Washington Post; a man who has taken steps to counter the supposed political influence of the pro-Israel community in America; a man who has also been a key financial backer of Senator Obama's; and a man who can activate a wide variety of 527 (c) and other activist groups for any politician he supports.

Soros is a funder of the ICG through his Open Society Institute ; he serves on its Board and on its Executive Committee. Other members of the Board include Zbigniew Brzezinski (whose anti-Israel credentials are impeccable) and Wesley Clark (who called US support for Israel during the Hezbollah War a "serious mistake"; who has flirted with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories; and who has been the direct beneficiary of donations made by Soros ; Wesley Clark has defended the actions of George Soros.

But let's return to George Soros.

While it is true that the ICG receives funding from other sources, none of these donors are on the board; and a billionaire on the Executive Committee of the Board can wield a great deal of influence. Soros is a man who is legendary for his investment prowess. In this case, he again seems to have invested well -- as he is proud to trumpet. When the ICG gave him a Founders Award, he spoke of how pleased he was with the work the group does ("my money is very well spent"), and he took particular pride in the work done "on the Palestinian question".

As he should be, given his goals. Malley, as the Director of the Middle East/ North African program at the ICG, has assembled a group of "analysts" who reflect his (and Soros's) views and who share their goals: a radical reshaping of decades of American foreign policy and a shredding of the role of morality in the formulation of American policy. These policies would strengthen our enemies, empower dictatorships, and harm our allies.

This small cast of characters at the ICG:

Issandr el Amrani has accused the Bush Administration of fanning the flames of sectarian strife by rallying support against Iran. He absurdly claims that the goal of this alliance is to create,

"a new regional security arrangement with the Jewish state firmly as its center-the holy grail of the neo-conservatives who, despite reports to the contrary, continue to craft U.S. Middle East policy. (Otherwise, why would Elliott Abrams still have his job?"

Peter Harling: who has co-written numerous op-eds with Malley that advocate outreach toward Iraqi extremist leader Moqtada al-Sadr; talks with Iran and Syria ; and numerous op-eds critical of American actions in Iraq.

Nicholas Pelham who advocates outreach toward Hamas.

Other analysts and their opinions can be found here.

They are uniformly passive on dealing with terrorism and terrorists; critical of US efforts in Iraq and American-led efforts to constrain Iran; advocate aid be given to Hamas despite its record of terrorism; endorse engagement with Syria despite its links with Hezbollah, its role in oppressing Lebanon and its involvement in the assassinations that have helped to destroy Lebanon. They also seemingly have no qualms about advocating outreach to Iran, regardless of its role in the killing of American and Iraqis in Iraq and its proclaimed goal of destroying Israel.

No wonder Soros is happy with his investment in the International Crisis Group and in Robert Malley.

Question remain

Why would Barack Obama have on his foreign policy staff a man who has been widely criticized for a revisionist history of the Middle East peace process sharply at odds with all other accounts of the proceedings?

Why would Barack Obama give credibility to a man who seems to have an agenda that includes empowering our enemies and weakening our friends and allies?

How did Robert Malley, with a record of writing that reveals a willingness to twist facts to serve a political agenda, come to be appointed by Obama to his foreign staff?

Was it a recommendation of Zbigniew Brzezinski to bring on board another anti-Israel foreign policy expert?

What role did the left-wing anti-Israel activist George Soros play in placing Robert Malley (or for that matter, Brzezinski himself) in a position to influence the future foreign policy of America?

What does it say about Senator Obama's judgment that he appointed a man like Malley to be a top foreign policy advisor?

Or does it speak more to his true beliefs?

*A digression, if I may, regarding Malley and impressive sounding titles. A Washington Post article on Senator Obama's foreign policy advisors described him as having been President Clinton's Middle East envoy. Now this would come as a surprise to Ambassador Dennis Ross who actually was Clinton's Middle East envoy. Indeed, there is a paucity of mentions of Malley in Ross's exhaustive history of the Middle East peace process during the Clinton years, The Missing Peace, where more often than not he is described as a note-taker-once serving as Yasser Arafat's stenographer.

Related article: Barack Obama and Israel.

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International-UN-NGOs

UN Condemns Counterterrorism

2008-01-04

By Robert Spencer

The Organization of the Islamic Conference, the largest voting bloc at the United Nations, has succeeded in pushing through the UN a resolution condemning the defamation of religions. Thats religions, not religion yet according to Cybercast News Service, although the resolution refers to defamation of religions, Islam is the only religion named in the text, which also takes a swipe at counter-terrorism security measures. The OIC has been pushing hard for such a measure ever since cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammad appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten late in 2005.

The resolution denounces laws that stigmatize groups of people belonging to certain religions and faiths under a variety of pretexts relating to security and illegal immigration. Muslims, it says, have suffered from ethnic and religious profiling...in the aftermath of the tragic events of 11 September 2001. This is the fault, in part, of the negative projection of Islam in the media. The UN voices its deep concern that Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism.

Such statements betray the assumption that any association of Islam with violence and terrorism is entirely the fault of non-Muslims. The fact that Muslims themselves routinely commit violent acts and justify them with reference to Islamic teachings is a fact we are not supposed to notice -- and indeed, if the sponsors of this resolution had their way, we would not be allowed to notice.

This UN resolution is part of an ongoing effort. Several weeks ago, the OICs secretary-general, a Turkish historian named Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, was one of the speakers at the International Islamophobia Conference held in Istanbul. Ihsanoglu, according to CNS, denounced freedom of speech as a cover in the West to promote anti-Islam sentiment.

Some of the worlds leading lights on Islam, both Muslim and non-Muslim, also spoke at the conference: Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's Prime Minister and advocate of political Islam; Iqbal Sacranie of the CAIR-like Muslim Council of Britain; Saudi-funded academic John Esposito of Georgetown University; Karen Armstrong, the renowned dhimmi author; Louay Safi of the unindicted co-conspirator ISNA; Lord Nazim Ahmed, the British Muslim peer; Professor Norman Finkelstein, late of DePaul; the notoriously slick Muslim Martin Luther Tariq Ramadan, who is not allowed into the U.S.; the American neo-Nazi William Baker, who has addressed Muslim audiences in the U.S.; and many, many others.

Surprise of surprises, these assembled dignitaries discovered that Islamophobia is a serious, serious problem, that must be addressed at the government level. Of course, attacks on innocent civilians are never justified. Louts, thugs and vigilantes have no excuse, and anyone who targets random Muslims and commits violence against them deserves to be punished to the full extent of the law. Unfortunately, however, it doesnt seem to have occurred to Ihsanoglu or anyone else at this Conference that Muslims might done anything to provoke this rise in Islamophobia, if there has been such a rise, or that they can do anything themselves to eradicate it. No one seems to have realized how easy it would be to stamp out Islamophobia once and for all. Yet it could be done in a trice. If Muslims really wanted to end Islamophobia and the defamation of religions instantaneously, heres how they can do it:

1. Focus their indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts.

2. Renounce definitively not just terrorism, as many Islamic groups in the U.S. and elsewhere have done many times in the past, but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful means.

3. Teach Muslims the imperative of coexisting peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis.

4. Begin comprehensive international programs in mosques all over the world to teach against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism.

5. Actively work with Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities.

If Muslims did those five things, voila! There will be no more defamation of Islam. But instead, this UN resolution is just the latest example of the evasion of responsibility and finger-pointing that we have seen from Islamic groups since 9/11 and before that. If a Muslim commits an act of violence and justifies it by reference to Islamic texts and teachings, its the fault of non-Muslims either because they oppress Muslims, or because they dare to take note of the connection the perpetrator made between Islam and his act of violence.

This evasion and denial should end. Government and law enforcement officials in the West should make sure it ends, by demanding that Islamic groups in the West be transparent and cooperative with anti-terror efforts. But this UN resolution only emphasizes that the movement is all in the other direction. We may only hope that this latest iteration of the Islamic jihad can be defeated before it becomes a crime to do so.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Jews who aid those who hate Jews (and America)

2006-05-16

From Jewish World Review
By Dennis Prager
Last week, professor Noam Chomsky went to Lebanon to speak at the headquarters of Hezbollah. As described by the BBC, not a media friend of Israel, "Hezbollah's political rhetoric has centered on calls for the destruction of the state of Israel," and Hezbollah has been "synonymous with terror, suicide bombings and kidnappings." The terror group's views on the need to annihilate the Jewish state are identical to those of Hamas and Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Chomsky announced his support for Hezbollah and its need to be militarily strong.
Also last week, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi from Vienna, a member of a [tiny and powerless] Jewish sect [that has been condemned by the entire fervently-religious world] called Neturei Karta, went to Stockholm to meet with a Palestinian Hamas official to help raise funds for Hamas. Hamas is, of course, dedicated to annihilating Israel, as is Neturei Karta, an Orthodox Jewish fringe group that believes no Jewish state should exist unless founded by G-d. It therefore supports Palestinian and other Muslim groups that murder Jews in Israel.
In March, a group of five Neturei Karta rabbis from Britain and the United States went to Tehran to lend their support to the Iranian regime in its calls for the annihilation of Israel. The group said nothing about the Iranian regime's repeated denials that there was a Holocaust.
This week, the University of California at Irvine Muslim Student Union is sponsoring a series of lectures under the heading, "Holocaust in the Holy Land" and "Israel: The Fourth Reich." Featuring activists committed to Israel's destruction, its lead speaker is a Jew named Norman Finkelstein, a professor who devotes his life to attacking Jewish communities and Israel. Also appearing is Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss from the above-mentioned Neturei Karta.
Tony Judt, a widely published New York University professor, recently wrote that "Israel, in short, is an anachronism," and should therefore cease to exist. The Jews of Israel should live under Arab/Muslim rule. Note that of all the countries of the world, Judt who the Jewish newspaper The Forward identified as "raised in the heavily Jewish East End section of London by a mother whose parents had immigrated from Russia and a Belgian father who descended from a line of Lithuanian rabbis" has advocated the disappearance of one country, the Jewish one. Why, for example, does Judt not write that Pakistan, a Muslim state carved out of India, is an "anachronism"?

Jews siding with the Jews' enemies or even actually fomenting Jew-hatred has a history that long predates Chomsky, Finkelstein, leftist Jewish professors and the Neturei Karta. Karl Marx, though baptized a Christian, was the grandson of two Orthodox rabbis but wrote one of the most anti-Semitic tracts of the 19th century, "On the Jewish Question." In it he wrote, among other anti-Semitic charges, that "Money is the jealous god of Israel, beside which no other god may exist."
How is one to explain these Jews who work to hurt Jews?
I think the primary explanations are psychological. As I wrote in a previous column, it is almost impossible to overstate the pathological effects of thousands of years of murder of Jews culminating in the Nazi Holocaust, when nearly all Jews on the European continent were murdered have had on most Jews.
It is not coincidental that Norman Finkelstein's parents went through the Holocaust or that Yisroel Dovid Weiss's grandparents were murdered in the Holocaust. But even Jews who lost no relatives in the Holocaust fear another outbreak of anti-Jewish violence, and given the Nazi-like anti-Semitism in the Muslim world today, that is not exactly paranoia.
One way to deal with this is to side with the enemy. Consciously or not, the Jew who sides with those dedicated to murdering Jews feels that he will be spared. He becomes the "good Jew" in the anti-Semites' eyes. How else to explain the visit of a Jew named Noam Chomsky to Lebanon to support Hezbollah or the fact that Chomsky wrote the foreword to a French book denying the Holocaust? How else to explain Norman Finkelstein telling cheering German audiences that the Jewish state is morally the same as the Nazis? How else to explain rabbis visiting Tehran to extol the Holocaust-denying regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran that seeks to exterminate Israel?
The other psychological explanation is related. The Jew specifically the radical Jew who sympathizes with Jew-haters wishes to announce to the world that he is not really like other Jews. While the other Jews are moored in provincial Jewish ethnic or religious identity, he is a world citizen who no more identifies with the Jews' fate than with the fate of Iroquois Indians.
The prevalence of Jew-hating Jews would be no more than an interesting study of psychopathology were it not for one additional fact: All these [born-]Jews (except for the fringe Neturei Karta rabbis) also hate America. And they do the same damage to this country aiding the enemies of America just as they do the enemies of the Jews.

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Home Front: Politix

Earth to John McCain -- The Israelis Use Torture

2005-11-22

Senator McCain is arguing for a U.S. policy against the use of torture. Among his arguments is that torture is ineffective and that the Israelis and Russians have learned to obtain information without torture by use of "psychological methods".

The Israelis DO use torture. Perhaps McCain should read the new book by Norman Finkelstein which documents this fact. Perhaps more importantly, a policy statement makes good political theater, but would not in and of itself necessarily means that torture was not carried out. It would just mean that keeping secrecy regarding use of torture would be facilitated. ...

The excuse that pending attacks could be prevented and lives saved by gathering timely information are disingenuous. If torture must be used to save lives and prevent attacks, then the government itself should never be allowed to hold information that could prevent attacks. We know that Franklin Roosevelt had access to all Japanese military and government radio the communications traffic, and he could have prevented the attack on Pearl Harbor by counterattacking the Japanese fleet well away from Hawaii. Roosevelt held his information tight and kept his awareness secret so that the attack could occur and America could be provoked into war against the Axis powers. The U.S. military developed ability to intercept and understand German military communications as well, and could have prevented any number of military battles in which soldiers were lost. But, for strategic reasons, American lives were sacrificed by the American government. Morals definitely took a back seat to military strategy.

If morals are to be used as a reason to torture prisoners in the War on Terror, then morals must require that the U.S. government prevent all preventable deaths of U.S. citizens and military personnel and must not hold secrets that cost American lives. There is plenty of solid evidence to demonstrate that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were known in adequate detail to high officials of the U.S. government (and to others) prior to those attacks and the attacks could have easily been thwarted. Even Mayor Willie Brown of San Francisco knew enough to avoid flying on that day, and he cancelled a trip to New York and avoided risk by his knowledge.

The reality is that torture is and probably always will be standard operating procedure of the American military and government. Senator McCain is trying desperately to hide public knowledge of torture by erecting a barrier, a shield to public awareness. McCain wants to be able to say, "We don't torture anyone, we have a firm policy against it" and then perfect methods of keeping actual torture secret. The fact that McCain approves of Israeli methods means he is not sincere in stopping torture.

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