By Simon Fischler
The last two weeks have been difficult ones for us in Israel.
It started well, though. For a few moments we Israelis were allowed to enjoy the 63rd anniversary of the RE-FOUNDATION of our nation-state.
But celebrating another birthday of our liberal, democratic Jewish State was quickly flushed down the tubes when Syrian tyrant Bashar Al-Assad tried to deflect the ongoing civil uprising in his country onto Israel on Nakba Day.
Assad’s attempts against Israel began by busing 250 Arabs in from Um-Al Famm to Jaffa, courtesy of the Islamic Movement of Israel (Israel’s Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas)
Even with the Islamic Movement busing in people (which means also paying them to come), the best they could put together were 250 protesters -- NOTHING in comparison to the uprisings in neighboring Arab states.
Assad realized he was going to have to up the ante if he wanted the world to forget about the mass murders he was carrying out. Therefore on Nakba Day Assad exhorted his allies Hezbollah and Hamas to enter the fray against Israel. Hezbollah and Hamas obliged by also bussing protestors to Israel’s borders.
In each case there were no more than a couple hundred protestors. The numbers never got close to the thousands, tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands we have seen in the Arab world.
Why were there so few protestors? Why did they not spiral out of control? Because, just as Benjamin Netanyahu said when he addressed the Congress of the United States of America, Israeli Arabs are free and enjoy equality like no other Arabs in Arab countries or the world in general.
If these people were not bussed in and paid by their Arab tyrant masters, no one would show up.
After ignoring the actions of Arab regimes towards their own citizens, and the complete failure of those regimes’ attempts to ignite the Arab population of Israel against their state, the Israeli daily Haaretz printed an interview with Omar Nasser, mayor of the Israeli Arab town Arabeh.
While Mubarak, Qadaffi, Assad and the Iranians are off MASS murdering their own people, the Arabs of Israel are allowed to protest safely and freely, but also to spit on the country that allows them this freedom. This was clearly demonstrated by the jaded interview with Omar Nasser.
Nasser called Netanyahu’s claims about the freedoms of Israel’s Arabs “false, misleading and unbearable hypocrisy.” He insists that Israel’s treatment of its Arab citizens should not be compared to how Arab leaders treat their own citizens, but to how Muslims and Arabs are treated in Western Europe or America and Canada.
Is Israel geographically situated in Europe? Is it a European country? No, so why should Israel be compared to European countries?
However, if that’s what Mr. Nasser wishes to do, let’s take a look.
* Arabs and Muslims cannot were Burkas, or headdresses in France. Laws strongly against the Muslim population of the French Republic are being enacted left and right.
* Far right, anti-Arab/Muslim political parties are proliferating and becoming strong, to the embarrassment of Liberal, left Europeans. Conservatism has reached the continent, mainly in response to Arab and Muslim immigration.
* The Arab and Muslim populations of France and, for that matter, nearly all of Western Europe are consigned to what any self-respecting European Jew would recognize as ghettos and discriminated against daily in myriad ways -- worse than anything in Israel.
* The Swiss have banned the building of minarets and are in the process of passing other laws that discriminate specifically against Muslims. The same can be said for virtually all western European nations, as they attempt to battle Islamic Fundamentalism.
In all of these countries a movement like Israel’s Islamic Movement would, without a doubt, be banned and considered a terrorist group.
Back now to Israeli Muslims. Before we touch on the 13 Arab Knesset members, or the freedoms of speech, travel and livelihood enjoyed by all Israeli Muslims, lets assess how much Israel’s Arab citizens contribute to their country.
Israeli Arabs do not serve in the Israel Defense Forces, nor must they complete National Service like their Jewish, Druze and Circassian CO-patriots. So, while the Arabs of Israel receive the benefits of Israel’s Universal Health Care, Social welfare system and all other rights given to Jewish, Druze, Circassian and Christian Israelis, they do nothing to fight against those who wish to destroy the very same institutions they enjoy.
If one looks at the reaction of the Israeli Arab community when the topic of land exchanges with the future Palestinian State comes up, you will know that Omar Nasser is intentionally attempting to delegitimize Israel.
There has been talk of Israel giving the future Palestinian State sovereignty over some Israeli Arab towns and villages and the Israeli Arabs cry out when they hear this. They cry out not because they will have to leave their homes; they won’t. they cry out because they want to remain Israeli; they know better than anyone that Israel will provide them freedoms that a Palestinian state will not.
What is eluding everyone outside Israel is the ability of the leaders (not the general population) of Israel’s Arab minority to disguise their own racism and hidden agenda against the state.
If a Jewish Israeli tried to buy a house in an Israeli Arab village, there would be no chance of it happening. If a Jewish Israeli did happen to live in an Israeli Arab town, they would be harassed until they packed up their bags and left.
This fact never gets any play because we here in Israel – like so many in the rest of the world -- are too busy being Politically Correct, which, in truth, simply means being too squeamish to “tell it like it is.”
To compound the situation, Israel’s Arab leaders often act in what would be classified as a treasonous manner towards the state that affords them such freedom, if this were anyplace other than Israel! Many call for the destruction of Israel and some have even been caught spying, as was the case with Asmi Bishara.
Arabeh Mayor Omar Nasser is wrong for making such statements against Israel, and he is wrong for delegitimizing her. Worse, Haaretz is wrong for printing such an interview without balancing it with a counter-viewpont.
Israel’s Arab minority needs to stop whining and attempting to delegitimize Israel. More importantly, this minority needs to make a decision: are they Israeli Arabs or Palestinian Arabs?
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
OBAMA'S SLIPS ARE SHOWING -- EVEN TO HIS (FORMER) FRIENDS
By Schmoel Yitzhak
Barack Obama once had a legion of friends in the American Jewish community.
A pair of the most prominent -- Ed Koch and Alan Dershowitz -- have turned against the president.
And it goes a lot farther than that.
Difficult as it is to believe, even a columnist in Haaretz -- which often reads like a Hebrew edition of Al Jazeera -- has ripped the White House. (And that cannot be blamed on global warming, either!)
Why have these seemingly topsy-turvy events occurred?
Perhaps a saying from the sages -- By their works shall ye know them -- says it all.
Or, if one bromide sums up Obama's relationship with Israel, it would be, "With friends like these, who needs enemies?"
Those of us who feared the boychik president long before he was elected are not the least bit surprised but the vast bloc of naive American Jews who are just beginning to get it; and I'll get to them in a moment.
But first let's take a gander at some significant events that have aroused the likes of Professor Dershowitz, former New York City mayor Koch and Haartetz's own Moshe Arens.
When Obama believes that the Jewish vote is important to him, he will praise Israel as a "friend" but hours after the words have left his forked tongue, yet another act of double-dealing is committed that undercuts Israel's security not to mention bargaining position with the Arabs.
The president's latest three-act charade began with his recent speech to the State Department -- ever hostile to the Jewish state -- prior to Benjamin Netanyahu's arrival in Washington. Act One could be called "The Gratuitous Kick In The Ass."
Common political courtesy demanded that the host in the White House allow his guest to deliver Israel's long-awaited blueprint for bringing the recalcitrant Arabs back to the negotiating table.
And common political savvy demanded that in advance of Bibi's arrivial, the president NOT establish demands -- or set new boundaries -- that should result ONLY from direct Israeli-Arab talks.
But what Obama plumbed with his actions was the absolute nadir in political perfidy.
By declaring -- while his guest was still in flight -- that Israel return to the "1967 lines" was like telling Bibi that the only thing for him on the White House dinner menu was cyanide-on-toast. Take it or leave it; but you had better take it!
In one fell swoop of a speech, the president pre-empted the Prime Minister, embarrassed him to the radical-50 and torpedoed any realistic vessel of peace that could sail through negotiations.
Even the vehemently anti-Bibi Haaretz saw fit to allow its columnist Arens to denounce the faithless Obama while supporting Netanyahu.
"Obama will go down as the great spoiler," wrote Arens. "He never seems to miss an opportunity to push the (peace) process into a dead end. He has done so again with his declaration that Israel should return to the '1967 lines' in any peace agreement with the Palestinians."
This is the same Obama who one year is embracing his buddy, Hosni Mubarak, and in another season not only knifes Mubarak in the back but essentially turns Egypt from Israel's ally to an enemy of the Jewish State. At the same time the White House mouths toothless homilies about Syria while Assad goes about the business of shooting dissenters left and right.
Arens: "Obama seems oblivious to the fact that the present fluid state of affairs in the Arab world, clouded by uncertainty regarding future developments among Israel's next-door neighbors, is hardly a propitious moment for risk taking by Israel. Rather than advancing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, he has managed to put obstacles in the way."
The White House seems to have forgotten that the Sadat-Begin Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty has virtually been shredded by the post-Mubarak regime which Obama helped ease into power.
Look at his record. You'll find that undermining Israel's basic security needs has been part and parcel of the president's modus operandi from the day after a majority of deceived American Jews got him elected.
Ever since Obama's visit to Cairo -- but as president, he has never visited Jerusalem nor Tel Aviv -- the president has ached to embrace the Islamic -- mostly militant -- world. Yet when it comes to Israel, he treats Netanyahu with the back of his hand.
That explains why the likes of Koch and Dershowitz have turned against him.
"Obama," says Dershowitz, "made one serious mistake that tilts the balance against Israel in any future negotiations. Without insisting that the Palestinians give up their absurd claim to have millions of supposed refugees return to Israel as a matter of right, he insisted that Israel must surrender all of the areas captured in its defensive war of 1967 subject only to land swaps.
"If the president is to play a positive role in bringing Palestinians and the Israelis to the negotiating table , he should insist that there be no preconditions to negotiation."
Ah, but Dershowitz is wrongly assuming that the Muslim president is an honest broker.
He is not and never has been and only now are some in the Democratic Party community beginning to understand that.
Koch says that American Jews believe that Obama, like every Democratic president, is another Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Those of us who have studied American history realize that FDR's inaction (his refusal to allow refugees from Hitler's Germany on SS St. Louis at Miami in 1939 as but one example) led to the deaths of thousands of Jews during World War II.
Some American Jews are on to Obama's double-tongued machinations. Many Israeli journalists, such as the Jerusalem Post's Caroline Glick, figured him out years ago and is as right today as she was in 2008.
"Obama sided with Hamas against Israel by acting as though its partnership with Fatah is just a little problem that has to be sorted out to reassure the paranoid Jews," wrote Glick after Bibi's visit to Washington. "Hamas is a jihadist movement dedicated to the annihilation of the Jewish people and the establishment of a global caliphate."
Right you are, Caroline. Wrong you are, Barack.
By their works shall ye know them!
Barack Obama once had a legion of friends in the American Jewish community.
A pair of the most prominent -- Ed Koch and Alan Dershowitz -- have turned against the president.
And it goes a lot farther than that.
Difficult as it is to believe, even a columnist in Haaretz -- which often reads like a Hebrew edition of Al Jazeera -- has ripped the White House. (And that cannot be blamed on global warming, either!)
Why have these seemingly topsy-turvy events occurred?
Perhaps a saying from the sages -- By their works shall ye know them -- says it all.
Or, if one bromide sums up Obama's relationship with Israel, it would be, "With friends like these, who needs enemies?"
Those of us who feared the boychik president long before he was elected are not the least bit surprised but the vast bloc of naive American Jews who are just beginning to get it; and I'll get to them in a moment.
But first let's take a gander at some significant events that have aroused the likes of Professor Dershowitz, former New York City mayor Koch and Haartetz's own Moshe Arens.
When Obama believes that the Jewish vote is important to him, he will praise Israel as a "friend" but hours after the words have left his forked tongue, yet another act of double-dealing is committed that undercuts Israel's security not to mention bargaining position with the Arabs.
The president's latest three-act charade began with his recent speech to the State Department -- ever hostile to the Jewish state -- prior to Benjamin Netanyahu's arrival in Washington. Act One could be called "The Gratuitous Kick In The Ass."
Common political courtesy demanded that the host in the White House allow his guest to deliver Israel's long-awaited blueprint for bringing the recalcitrant Arabs back to the negotiating table.
And common political savvy demanded that in advance of Bibi's arrivial, the president NOT establish demands -- or set new boundaries -- that should result ONLY from direct Israeli-Arab talks.
But what Obama plumbed with his actions was the absolute nadir in political perfidy.
By declaring -- while his guest was still in flight -- that Israel return to the "1967 lines" was like telling Bibi that the only thing for him on the White House dinner menu was cyanide-on-toast. Take it or leave it; but you had better take it!
In one fell swoop of a speech, the president pre-empted the Prime Minister, embarrassed him to the radical-50 and torpedoed any realistic vessel of peace that could sail through negotiations.
Even the vehemently anti-Bibi Haaretz saw fit to allow its columnist Arens to denounce the faithless Obama while supporting Netanyahu.
"Obama will go down as the great spoiler," wrote Arens. "He never seems to miss an opportunity to push the (peace) process into a dead end. He has done so again with his declaration that Israel should return to the '1967 lines' in any peace agreement with the Palestinians."
This is the same Obama who one year is embracing his buddy, Hosni Mubarak, and in another season not only knifes Mubarak in the back but essentially turns Egypt from Israel's ally to an enemy of the Jewish State. At the same time the White House mouths toothless homilies about Syria while Assad goes about the business of shooting dissenters left and right.
Arens: "Obama seems oblivious to the fact that the present fluid state of affairs in the Arab world, clouded by uncertainty regarding future developments among Israel's next-door neighbors, is hardly a propitious moment for risk taking by Israel. Rather than advancing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, he has managed to put obstacles in the way."
The White House seems to have forgotten that the Sadat-Begin Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty has virtually been shredded by the post-Mubarak regime which Obama helped ease into power.
Look at his record. You'll find that undermining Israel's basic security needs has been part and parcel of the president's modus operandi from the day after a majority of deceived American Jews got him elected.
Ever since Obama's visit to Cairo -- but as president, he has never visited Jerusalem nor Tel Aviv -- the president has ached to embrace the Islamic -- mostly militant -- world. Yet when it comes to Israel, he treats Netanyahu with the back of his hand.
That explains why the likes of Koch and Dershowitz have turned against him.
"Obama," says Dershowitz, "made one serious mistake that tilts the balance against Israel in any future negotiations. Without insisting that the Palestinians give up their absurd claim to have millions of supposed refugees return to Israel as a matter of right, he insisted that Israel must surrender all of the areas captured in its defensive war of 1967 subject only to land swaps.
"If the president is to play a positive role in bringing Palestinians and the Israelis to the negotiating table , he should insist that there be no preconditions to negotiation."
Ah, but Dershowitz is wrongly assuming that the Muslim president is an honest broker.
He is not and never has been and only now are some in the Democratic Party community beginning to understand that.
Koch says that American Jews believe that Obama, like every Democratic president, is another Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Those of us who have studied American history realize that FDR's inaction (his refusal to allow refugees from Hitler's Germany on SS St. Louis at Miami in 1939 as but one example) led to the deaths of thousands of Jews during World War II.
Some American Jews are on to Obama's double-tongued machinations. Many Israeli journalists, such as the Jerusalem Post's Caroline Glick, figured him out years ago and is as right today as she was in 2008.
"Obama sided with Hamas against Israel by acting as though its partnership with Fatah is just a little problem that has to be sorted out to reassure the paranoid Jews," wrote Glick after Bibi's visit to Washington. "Hamas is a jihadist movement dedicated to the annihilation of the Jewish people and the establishment of a global caliphate."
Right you are, Caroline. Wrong you are, Barack.
By their works shall ye know them!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)