Elder of Ziyon Daily Digest |
- How to be a media-savvy advocate for Israel (EoZ speech - audio)
- Malaysian ship tries again to go to Gaza, gets engine trouble
- Abbas speech delivered by advisor: "Israel is incidental in history"
- Afternoon links
- Lawfare - to stop flotillas to Gaza!
- When Begin chastised the US
- Proof that Arabs don't care about the "right to return"
- Erekat emerges, adds a new precondition
- Jeffrey Goldberg, the "sha, shtil!" Jew
- Report from AIPAC, day 1 (Bruce)
- Donate to erect a Gilad Shalit billboard near the UN
| How to be a media-savvy advocate for Israel (EoZ speech - audio) Posted: 23 May 2011 08:05 PM PDT I just gave a speech in East Brunswick, NJ, at Middlesex County Torah Links, an adult education program. The room was full.. And only a few of those who attended had ever read my blog! The topic was "How to be a media-savvy advocate for Israel." Luckily for you listening, my projector didn't work so there is nothing that you are missing visually. I did not include the questions and answers at the end in this audio, as this was already over an hour long. Enjoy! 
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| Malaysian ship tries again to go to Gaza, gets engine trouble Posted: 23 May 2011 12:50 PM PDT From AFP: A Malaysian aid ship attempting to land in Gaza after being warned off by Israeli naval forces last week has been forced to abort its mission after engine trouble, activists said.Keep in mind the timeline - the ship was not allowed to dock at El Arish for days before its crew decided to try for Gaza again. Yet no one is blaming Egypt for not letting them unload their precious cargo. Even though Egypt claims that it has/will open Rafah. Sounds like Egypt is blockading Gaza, doesn't it? (h/t Challah Hu Akbar) 
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| Abbas speech delivered by advisor: "Israel is incidental in history" Posted: 23 May 2011 11:41 AM PDT From Palestine Media Watch: Transcript: "National reconciliation [between Hamas and Fatah] is required in order to face Israel and Netanyahu. We say to him [Netanyahu], when he claims – that they [Jews] have a historical right dating back to 3000 years BCE – we say that the nation of Palestine upon the land of Canaan had a 7000 year history BCE. This is the truth, which must be understood and we have to note it, in order to say: 'Netanyahu, you [i.e., Israel] are incidental in history. We are the people of history. We are the owners of history.'" That's funny. I wonder why they don't call the land "Canaan," then. 
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| Posted: 23 May 2011 10:42 AM PDT Tundra Tabloids: Netanyahu Urges U.S. Return to 1845 Borders (satire) Aryeh Tepper: Israel and Western guilt A non-public YouTube video showing the staging of an anti-Israel propaganda movie in Syria Yaacov Lozowick's must see series of posts called Don't Divide Jerusalem are now all in one spot. IDF helping Palestinian Arabs from Jenin sell cucumbers. An Israeli professor's speech in Montreal and the hate it generated. The speech was on the geopolitics of energy. A Scottish council wants to ban all Israeli books, or books by Israelis, from its libraries. Colonel Richard Kemp's speech to 'We Believe in Israel' Conference, from TheJC More hate links to report, from Giyus Details on how the PA puts terrorists on their payroll, from Evelyn Gordon The hunger to come to Egypt by Spengler (h/t Yerushalimey, Greg, Silke X3, Yisrael Medad, Anne, T34) 
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| Lawfare - to stop flotillas to Gaza! Posted: 23 May 2011 09:21 AM PDT From The Times of London, May 17th (not available online): An Israeli human rights group has warned Lloyd's of London that it may be liable for massive damages if it insures ships that are used by suspected terrorist organisations to sail to the Gaza Strip. More from Shurat HaDin here. (h/t Zach N) 
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| Posted: 23 May 2011 08:11 AM PDT Netanyahu's words at the White House were positively obsequious compared to Menachem Begin's reaction to what he characterized as US "punishment" of Israel for the Osirak attack, Golan Heights law and Lebanon invasion, in December 1981. From Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs website: In an unprecedented move, Mr. Begin summoned the United States ambassador to Israel, and read to him the following statement. It was later read to the cabinet and issued to the public. Mr. Begin complained that the U.S. had punished Israel three times in the past six months. Israel was no. "vassal state" or a "banana republic." He also hinted of anti-Semitic overtones in some of the punitive measures taken by the United States. Text:Somehow, Israel survived this verbal attack on its ally. A two-year old article that compares Begin with how Netanyahu had been acting in the face of American pressure can be found here. (h/t Yisrael Medad) 
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| Proof that Arabs don't care about the "right to return" Posted: 23 May 2011 06:57 AM PDT From the Jordan Times: Prime Minister Marouf Bakhit on Sunday stressed the importance of the right of return for all Palestinian refugees, which is a top priority for Jordan.Is Jordan really keen on the rights of Palestinian Arabs to "return" to their homes? In Jordan, in the town of Jerash, is a "refugee" camp that is mostly made up of Gazans who fled in 1967. It is even known as the "Gaza camp." Some 24,000 people live there. The homes that the Jerash Palestinians want to return to are not in Israel, but in Gaza. Moreover, Gazans in ordan do not enjoy the benefits of citizenship so they are living in really wretched comditions with very few human rights. If Jordan is so interested in the "right to return," then why aren't they insisting that the Jerash camp be dismantled and the people go back to Gaza? Right now, there is nothing stopping Jordan from arranging safe passage through Egypt to Gaza. They can go back and claim their old homes, just like the other "refugees" want to do in Israel. So why is there no Arab demand that Jerash residents go to Gaza? The same UNRWA money being used to maintain the camp in Jordan can be redirected to Gaza. No doubt there would be plenty of international support for building new shelters if necessary. Free Gaza and the IHH would contribute all the money needed, as would Arab nations who are interested in the "right to return." After all, these people lost their homes and want to go back. This is the essence of "return." It is a consensus position among Arabs. Israel can't stop them at the Rafah border. So what's the problem? The Jerash residents themselves clearly want to go back to Gaza. From 2005: As children in the street chanted "Gaza is liberated," 65-year-old Ayed Suleiman Abu-Hashish broke into tears. Could it be that Arab idea of "return" is only to parts of "historic Palestine" and not to others? And those parts all happen to be Israeli? The fact that Jerash exists today, six years after Israel left Gaza, without anyone calling for it to be dismantled, shows that the Arab demand for "return" has nothing to do with their feelings towards their Palestinian brethren - and has everything to do with destroying Israel. (h/t Sabril, Joel) 
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| Erekat emerges, adds a new precondition Posted: 23 May 2011 05:55 AM PDT From JPost: Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat said that the Palestinians need to hear one line from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in order to return to the negotiating table. "There's one line," Erekat told Army Radio Monday, that "negotiations should lead to two states along 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps." Didn't Erekat resign a few months ago? Or was that just one of the many lies that he likes to tell? 
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| Jeffrey Goldberg, the "sha, shtil!" Jew Posted: 23 May 2011 04:27 AM PDT An old joke: Two Jews are dragged off by anti-Semites before a firing squad. The first one cries, "Stop! Stop! You're murdering an innocent man." "Shhhhh!" hisses the second Jew. "Don't cause trouble!" Throughout the history of the Diaspora, Jews have become almost genetically programmed to embrace the philosophy that they must meekly submit to the will of their rulers, that the worst thing to do was to call attention to themselves. Back-room politics was the preferred way to get things done, in places that Jews could exercise that prerogative. This was a very good survival tactic for a small nation that was spread out in the world. Zionism brought with it an alternative method: defending your people from a position of pride and a knowledge that you are right. These two methods have clashed in the past. During the Holocaust, there were many (mostly religious) Jews who tirelessly fought behind the scenes to save as many Jews as possible; there were others who fearlessly went public with their battles - much to the dismay of Jews who were raised with the idea of the Yiddish "Sha, shtil!" - "Shut up!" The same battle occurred during the long fight to open up the Soviet Union to allowing Jews to emigrate. In that case, the loud people won. The mass rallies in Washington were noted in Moscow, and they brought the issue to the forefront in Congress and in the White House. Ultimately, the loudmouths won. Israel finds itself still under attack by the "Sha, shtil" Jews, Jews who are fundamentally uncomfortable with the idea of fellow Jews acting truly independently. These Jews cannot wrap their heads around the idea of Israel proudly acting for its own best interests, or at best, acting against what they arrogantly believe are Israel's best interests from the Diaspora. Jeffrey Goldberg's latest column shows him to be a "sha, shtil!" Jew. Like many of you, I watched the Prime Minister of Israel publicly lecture the President of the United States on Jewish history with a mixture of shock, amusement and bewilderment.Notably, not an ounce of pride. It is telling that Goldberg feels that an American president denouncing a terror group is an "enormous gift." Jews should genuflect when a president acknowledges the bleeding obvious? Goldberg also doesn't get who Netanyahu's audience was, as alluded to by Andrea Mitchell. Netanyahu wasn't so much lecturing Obama - he actually took pains to be polite in his unscripted, un-teleprompted speech - as much as he was using the opportunity to speak to the world. Rarely do Westerners actually get to hear the words of an Israeli leader beyond sound-bites, and here Netanyahu had an audience much larger than he ever had speaking to Wolf Blitzer. It might have been a lecture, but it was largely meant for the world. Goldberg lists the reasons for his "sha, shtil!" discomfort: There are a number of problems, tactical and strategic, with Netanyahu's pedantic behavior:Netanyahu did not say, or even imply, anything about a permanent occupation of the entire West Bank. This is Goldberg putting his "hawkish Likud" meme ahead of what was actually said. Netanyahu's words could have been said with very little change by Tzipi Livni or Ehud Barak and still been consistent with their parties' policies. It is also profoundly troubling that Goldberg has no feelings at all about Israel losing its holiest places because they happen to all be in what he apparently believes is Arab, Muslim land and whose Jewishness is merely an "historic anomaly." 2) Even if Obama didn't understand Jewish history, it is still off-putting for many Americans to watch their president being lectured by a foreign leader in his own house;"Sha, shtil!" People understand, and respect, pride and the truth. Netanyahu's major point was that too much of Western Middle East policy is based on not wanting to ruffle the feathers of the Arab world and therefore avoiding saying basic truths, like the fact that Palestinian Arab "refugees" are never, ever going to "return." If Obama would have stood up and actually said that in his address, it would have been the biggest step towards real peace in recent memory. Given that this is a theme that is found ad nauseum in every liberal publication, it is absurd to think that Netanyahu doesn't understand this perspective. And, again, Goldberg is believing that "occupation" is an all-or-nothing game; he has bought the lie that somehow an independent Palestine must be along some arbitrary lines that have nothing to do with security and are themselves the real historical anomaly. Goldberg here is engaging in the same kind of condescending rhetoric that he accuses Netanyahu of. 4) The Prime Minister desperately needs President Obama to defend Israel in the United Nations, and even more crucially, to confront Iran's nuclear program, which poses an existential threat to the Jewish state; angering him constantly doesn't seem to be an effective way to marshal the President's support;And when, exactly, have the "sha, shtil" methods made Obama more likely to love Israel and understand her position? Whether Goldberg likes it or not, Obama has publicly moved closer to Israel's correct positions exactly because of external pressure, not from Goldberg's style of trying to privately convince him. 5) Based on the mail I've been receiving, and conversations I've been having with Jewish leaders of various ideological persuasions, there is a great worry that Netanyahu, through his behavior even more than his policies, is alienating other of Israel's friends, needlessly.The kind of people that Goldberg is corresponding with are the kinds of people who already agree with his "sha, shtil" mentality. As I have pointed out previously, the supposedly moderate Mahmoud Abbas has truly insulted Obama - directly, not couched in diplomatic niceties - only a few months ago. Goldberg didn't rage against this slap in the face of his President then. Perhaps he was not even aware of the fact that the PA government officially called the US an obstacle to peace and said it cannot be an honest broker - words that make Netanyahu's look like fawning praise. What was the penalty to Abbas for putting out this press release on his own government website? How did it affect US/Palestinian Arab relations? Where was the gnashing of teeth by Palestinian "moderates" about how Abbas crossed the line? In short, why is Israel standing up for its principles so awful when her enemies do it routinely - and insultingly without any repercussions? It is because Arabs never grew up with the concept of "sha, shtil!" 
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| Report from AIPAC, day 1 (Bruce) Posted: 23 May 2011 02:33 AM PDT Fellow blogger Bruce is attending the AIPAC conference and he filed this report from Day 1: In the first day of the conference, two politicians elicited howls of support from over 10,000 AIPAC delegates, after they publicly criticized President Obama's stance on the pre-Six Day War lines. In a dramatic speech just moments before President Obama took the podium, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer [D] jabbed the President emphasizing "if peace and security are to exist, Israel's borders must be defensible and must reflect reality on the ground." That a fellow Democrat would sting the President seemed to thrill the crowd, which erupted in a howls of agreement which lasted for several minutes. It was the most dramatic moment of the day, which began with hours of exhausting pre-conference security dictated by President Obama's attendance. AIPAC President Lee Rosenberg's introduction of President Obama was unusual, but carefully scripted to help the President avoid a cold greeting. Mr. Rosenberg gave a traditional introduction, the crowd rose to stand for President Obama, but then Mr. Rosenberg awkwardly added "before the President addresses us, I'd like to add..." He then gave a rather long list of thank-yous ["we thank you Mr. President..."], seemingly to remind the crowd of times when we were happier with him. When Rosenberg finished, the President received a respectful welcoming, which included a milquetoast standing ovation. President Obama's speech was well crafted and took us through areas of common ground [Iron Dome & Iran]. The two most poignant moments of his speech was when he insisted that Hamas recognize Israel's right to exist before any negotiations and his call for Hamas' release of Gilad Shalit. All of this was, of course, absent from Thursday's "Arab Spring" Speech. One had the distinct impression that the President was trying to clean up the electoral problems created by his picking yet another fight with Netanyahu. To his credit, the President pointedly said that he knew that he "generated some controversy over the past few days." But then he had the chutzpah to quote the offensive lines from his Arab Spring Speech, trying to claim that he was merely misunderstood. That earned him the only audible booing of the speech. The most intelligent comments of the day came from Majority Whip Eric Cantor [R]. His speech included the following: "In order for us to win this great struggle, we must have the courage to see the world not as we wish it to be, but as it truly is. It is not morally equivalent when the offenses of terrorists are equated with the defenses of Israel. The following story illustrates Israel's dilemma. A Palestinian woman from Gaza arrives at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba for lifesaving skin treatment for burns over half her body. After the conclusion of her extensive treatment, the woman is invited back for follow-up visits to the outpatient clinic. One day she is caught at the border crossing wearing a suicide belt. Her intention? To blow herself up at the same clinic that saved her life. This is the root of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. It is not about the '67 lines." With that the crowd again erupted in the longest standing ovation of the day. Cantor added: "To Mr. Abbas, I say: Stop the incitement in your media and your schools. Stop naming public squares and athletic teams after suicide bombers. And come to the negotiating table when you have prepared your people to forego hatred and renounce terrorism - and Israel will embrace you." While Minority Whip Hoyer earns the "most dramatic moment of the day" award, Majority Whip Cantor earns the "most intelligent comments of the day" award. 
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| Donate to erect a Gilad Shalit billboard near the UN Posted: 23 May 2011 01:00 AM PDT Donations are being solicited to put a billboard near the UN, in an initiative that is supported by the Shalit family, asking that the international community works to free Gilad Shalit.  This is a great idea to keep his plight in the public eye. Here's a JPost article about this campaign. 
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