| What the hell is wrong with New Zealand? (guest post)noreply@blogger.com (Unknown), 11 Feb 05:53 AM Anti-Israel rally in New Zealand last May The f | |
Anti-Israel rally in New Zealand last May
The following is a guest post from an author who prefers to remain anonymous.
________________________________________ Government-backed BDS support, links to the Amnesty report, and Holocaust denial in major institutions: What's up with New Zealand? The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis has produced an excellent overview of people who publicly promoted the latest Amnesty report, showing just how predetermined the narrative was. From the Secretary General of Amnesty, who has promoted BDS; to the Research and Advocacy Director and Senior Adviser, who reverted to antisemitic tropes of Jewish power when questioned about the disproportionate condemnation of Israel. However, all the senior Amnesty staff who have remained silent as the once-proud organisation embarasses itself are also responsible. I was fascinated to see that one of the Vice Chairs, Tiumalu Peter Fa'afiu, hails from New Zealand. This struck me as surprising, given the image of the South Pacific as a tolerant, liberal, part of the globe and a people who should understand indigenous struggles - including those of the Jews. Digging deeper here I was floored to learn that Mr Fa'afiu spent eight years with the New Zealand Foreign Ministry. Surely...Read More |
From Ian: To Combat Antisemitism, We Must Oppose Anti-Zionism—at Home and Abroad This ideology—antisemitic anti-Zionism—is on the march. It is an ideology rooted in ancient hatreds which targets for hate and opprobrium the modern-day State of Israel. And tragically, in the West, it is Europe—in whose bloodlands six million Jews were murdered eight decades ago—which is at its epicentre. Last week, for instance, Amnesty International published a report which compared Israel to apartheid-era South Africa. Factually inaccurate and intellectually dishonest, the report has little to do with legitimate concerns about the plight of the Palestinian people. Instead, it's part of a continuing effort by some on the Left to demonize and delegitimize the world's sole Jewish state. The "apartheid smear" originated in the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign, a movement which focuses obsessively and exclusively on Israel's "crimes" and which has done nothing to further the cause of peace in the Middle East. That's not their goal. As Bassem Eid, the founder of Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, has argued, "The agenda of the BDS campaign is to try to destroy Israel." It has, moreover, inspired a welter of anti-Israel campaigning on university campuses which has stifled debate and led to an atmosphere of fear and intimidation among many Jewish students. Last November...Read More |
I'm fairly certain I can find at least one lie on every page of Amnesty's report accusing Israel of apartheid. Today I chose to look at page 111:
Palestinians in East Jerusalem are neither able to participate in political life in Israel nor in the West Bank. OK, let's see the proof:
Although they can vote and run in municipal elections in Jerusalem, they have traditionally boycotted them in protest at Israel's ongoing occupation and illegal annexation annexation of East Jerusalem [468],and they remain excluded from national elections. So they can vote in municipal elections - and boycott them instead. And this is Israel's fault, exactly, how? Empty polling location in Arab neighborhood Most of them are excluded from national elections - the ones who don't become citizens. It wouldn't make sense for non-citizens to vote in national elections! And most of them refuse to become Israeli citizens. So, again, their own decisions are what stops them from full participation in Israeli political life - and Amnesty blames Israel.
Now, let's look at that footnote 468 referred to in the quote above, from 2018 article in Foreign Policy. It says something that Amnesty doesn't want you to know: In July, Aziz Abu Sarah, 38, a Jerusalem entrepreneur who co-owns MEJDI, a tour group providing "dual narrative" (Palestinian...Read More |
Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory. Check out their Facebook page. London, February 10 - Leaders of the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions movement targeting Israel over what they consider the Jewish State's occupation of Palestinian land announced today that as Moscow prepares to increase its hold on areas that belong to Kiev under international law, the movement will maintain its exclusive focus on Israel, and not acknowledge the greater loss of life, suffering, human rights violations, and other monumental injustices elsewhere in the world that dwarf those against which they claim to fight. Prominent advocates of BDS stressed Thursday the importance of riveting their attention to what they allege Israel does, and not to let the atrocities and egregious policies of some of the most murderous regimes in history distract them from the singular goal of righting a supposed wrong that barely registers in the annals of human suffering, in the process of which they foment and encourage further suffering, much of it self-inflicted by Palestinians. "We have never let other crises divert us from the central issue, which is Palestine," affirmed Omar Barghouti, who holds a Master's degree from Tel Aviv University. "China's occupation and cultural genocide in Tibet; its extermination of Uighurs in Xinjiang; its suppression of dissent in...Read More |
From Ian: Prof. Eugene Kontorovich (WSJ$): There's Apartheid in the Holy Land, but Not in Israel There are reasons to be concerned about the emergence of apartheid in the Holy Land but not the ones Amnesty cites. The defining characteristic of apartheid - what distinguishes it from generic racial discrimination - is the rigid separation of groups in public spaces and positions of power. Thus, a sign of apartheid could be a government policy that bans real-estate sales or transactions to the disfavored group. Apartheid is suggested by policies that carve out massive zones where the disfavored group cannot live or work, create ethnically homogenous zones, and restrict the disfavored group to ghettos. One might consider it apartheid if a government enforced a policy of extrajudicial execution of members of a disfavored group. All these policies are practiced in the West Bank and Gaza by the Palestinian Authority government against Jews. The "Israel apartheid" meme is not just a lie, it is an inversion of the truth. In all areas controlled by Israel, Jews and Arabs mix openly. Yet all the areas under PA jurisdiction are Jew-free. Palestinian law makes selling land to Jews a crime punishable by death, often without trial. The South African government used death squads against blacks...Read More |
By Forest Rain Wisdom is knowing what we don't know. When I made Aliyah I discovered that although I am Jewish and was raised in a Zionist household, I knew nothing about Israel. Nothing. That was a painful discovery. I was 13 and the culture shock was enormous. It took me years to reorient myself and be able to articulate what I didn't know or understand and why it matters. I was raised in a Zionist household. We weren't religious but we observed Jewish holidays. Or so I thought. I attended a Jewish school and Jewish after-school daycare and even so - I knew nothing about Israel. I don't remember Israel ever being mentioned in my school. I thought I knew Hebrew (after moving here I discovered I didn't). I knew what I thought were the basics about the Jewish holidays, but no one had ever pointed out the intrinsic link to the Land and to the fight for freedom and sovereignty. The most Zionist holidays either weren't ever mentioned (like Shavuot or Tu B'shvat) or the elements of Zionism in them were simply ignored (like with Hannukah). I knew we were different, but I didn't really understand what that meant. Reverence for books and education was the air I breathed. I knew about the hate. I knew my grandmother was a fighter for Israel. And with all that - no one ever told me that the pillars of Jewish identity are the connection to our People, our Land, and the Torah. As secular Jews, our connection to the Torah was tenuous. We were connected to other Jews in our area but...Read More |
From Times of Israel: In the Negev, a few dozen right-wing activists, reportedly residents of the south and students at yeshivas in the area, set up a new outpost overnight Tuesday on state land close to the Bedouin city of Rahat. Two prefab structures were brought to the location, which the activists declared as a "new community" named Ma'ale Paula in memory of the wife of Israel's first prime minister, David Ben Gurion. Ben Gurion had advocated for Jewish communities to be established in the Negev during the early years of the state. Activists said that Ma'ale Paula was set up because of "the conduct of the government and the abandonment of the Negev to a Bedouin takeover," a reference to illegal Arab construction in the region. Two people were arrested, the Kan public broadcaster reported. A complaint against the outpost was filed by the Israel Land Authority, the Israel Police said in a statement. The outpost was demolished. But: The right-wing, pro-settlement Regavim group said in a statement that some 3,500 illegal buildings are constructed each year by the Bedouin community. "Worse than the lack of law enforcement is the selective enforcement," the group said, according to Kan. In 2013, I went on a tour of the Negev with Regavim. The group is not a bunch of anti-Arab, right-wing fanatics as they are often portrayed in the media. They want to...Read More |
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