| The American Jewish Committee in the 1960s: Peter Beinart's NYT lies more egregious than I reportednoreply@blogger.com (Unknown), 28 Aug 04:45 AM I | | I wrote my fisking of Peter Beinart's NYT op-ed quickly, but the true depth of Beinart's dishonesty can be seen from a deeper dive into one of the topics he mentioned and I touched upon. He wrote, "Although supportive of Israel's existence, America's leading Jewish groups did not make it the center of their work in the mid-20th century. And when they did focus on Israel, they often tried to bring its behavior in line with their broader liberal democratic goals. The A.J.C. repeatedly criticized Israel for discriminating against its Palestinian Arab citizens. In 1960 the head of the group's Israel Committee explained that it hoped to eliminate "antidemocratic practices and attitudes" in the Jewish state so the organization could more credibly "invoke principles of human rights and practices in our country and abroad."
Beinart links to a fairly obscure 1998 academic paper, "Transformation Through Crisis: The American Jewish Committee and the Six-Day War," by Lawrence Grossman, published in the journal American Jewish History. This is already a red flag - if American Jewish organizations in the 1960s were so uniformly critical of Israeli democracy, wouldn't there be a New York Times article about it that Beinart could link to?
The entire point of the academic article Beinart links to is to show that the AJC was out of the mainstream...Read More |
From Ian: The Use Of Human Shields Is A War Crime. America Must Hold Terrorists Accountable The administration and Congress should take several steps to more effectively counter the widespread use of human shields by PIJ and other terrorist organizations. First, the administration should implement its legal authority to designate terrorists who use human shields. Despite strong evidence of human shields use by PIJ and other terrorists, and the requirements of U.S. law, neither Trump nor Biden has thus far imposed any human shields sanctions on anyone. Imposing sanctions on PIJ leaders for their use of human shields would be an important first step. Meanwhile, Congress should reauthorize and enhance the existing sanctions law,which is set to expire on December 31, 2023. In addition, the US, Israel, and other allies should work together, including with NATO, to press the UN and other international organizations to investigate, condemn, and encourage penalties for human shields use by terrorist organizations and their material supporters. For example, the UN human rights high commissioner and council should be encouraged to vigorously investigate, condemn, and encourage accountability for the use of human shields. Finally, the militaries of Israel, the United States and other NATO members, and other allies must coordinate in sharing best practices...Read More |
From Ian: The Afterlife Alexander Pechersky Led a Successful Prisoner Revolt at the Sobibor Death Camp. His Extraordinary Story is Also That of Millions of Soviet Jews. In November of 2018, at the National Arts Club in New York City, I attended a screening for the film Sobibor, which was described in the program as "First Russian Oscar Contender About Holocaust" (sic). The screening was part of a promotional campaign to secure a nomination in the best foreign film category, and was presented by the film's producers, along with the Alexander Pechersky Foundation and the Russian American Foundation. Annexed to the auditorium where the screening was to happen was a small exhibition about Alexander "Sasha" Pechersky and the uprising he led at the Sobibor concentration camp, which was the subject of the film. Konstantin Khabensky, the film's star and director, had come to the screening from Russia. A panel of historians and experts was convened. The audience consisted of members of the local Jewish community and the Jewish press, not a few of them Russian-speaking. A group of elderly Russian Jewish war veterans, some in uniform, all decorated with their medals, were seated near the front of the room. Among them was a woman who wore a yellow star button on her blouse to identify her as a Holocaust survivor. In opening remarks, a scholar of Soviet Holocaust...Read More |
I have noted before that Peter Beinart is a master propagandist. He carefully frames his arguments in ways that sound reasonable unless you understand the facts as well as his methodology. Today he writes in the New York Times that those who accuse Israel bashers of antisemitism are wrong.
Let's look at his arguments: Over the past 18 months, America's most prominent Jewish organizations have done something extraordinary. They have accused the world's leading human rights organizations of promoting hatred of Jews. Last April, after Human Rights Watch issued a report accusing Israel of "the crimes of apartheid and persecution," the American Jewish Committee claimed that the report's arguments "sometimes border on antisemitism." In January, after Amnesty International issued its own study alleging that Israel practiced apartheid, the Anti-Defamation League predicted that it "likely will lead to intensified antisemitism." The A.J.C. and A.D.L. also published a statement with four other well-known American Jewish groups that didn't just accuse the report of being biased and inaccurate, but also claimed that Amnesty's report "fuels those antisemites around the world who seek to undermine the only Jewish country on Earth." These examples are all accurate. It is almost absurd to argue that one...Read More |
From Ian: Melanie Phillips: Apoplexy greets Israel's move against terror NGOs So "human rights" NGOs are a key weapon in the diplomatic and political war of attrition aimed at Israel's destruction. That's why Human Rights Watch is intimately involved in the Pillay commission set up by the United Nations as a kangaroo court to declare Israel a supreme violator of human rights. And that's why a letter disseminated by Human Rights Watch and signed by ten like-minded groups called the Israeli action "an assault on the basic human rights of Palestinians to assemble and organize freely and an example of the Israeli government's weaponization of 'counterterrorism laws' in its relentless attacks against civil society activists." Thus much was entirely predictable. But the reaction of the Biden administration raises additional questions. For unlike the European Union, the United States hasn't funded any of the NGOs in question. So although it hasn't actually repudiated Israel's claims, why has it called into question Israeli intelligence? The president of NGO Monitor, Professor Gerald Steinberg, offers two reasons. The groups in question, he says, are heroes to progressive Democrats for championing "human rights" against Israel. To acknowledge the reality would create a major backlash from those for whom the Palestinians can do no wrong and Israel can do no right. Moreover, in the diplomatic...Read More |
By Daled Amos Ben & Jerry's was in the news again this week, as a federal judge rejected their attempt to prevent their parent company, Unilever, from allowing their ice cream from being sold in Judea and Samaria -- or as Ben & Jerry's prefers to call it: "Occupied Palestinian Territory." Just a little over a year ago, they formally joined the BDS movement when the company announced they would no longer sell their ice cream in the West Bank. Just last month, Ben & Jerry's found themselves accused of being hypocrites for claiming it was inconsistent with their values for their ice cream to be sold "on occupied land" while they themselves based their headquarters on tribal Indian land -- according to a letter signed by over a thousand Israeli students and academics affiliated with Students for Justice in America, with the support of Shurat HaDin. The New York Post covered the story: Israeli students accuse Ben & Jerry's of occupying tribal land: Israeli students claim that ice cream maker Ben & Jerry's is "illegally" occupying land in Vermont that once belonged to a Abenaki native American tribe and should practice what it preaches and immediately...Read More |
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On Thursday, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini gave a statement to the UN Security Council saying, as the agency has said every year for decades, that it is in existential danger.
There is plenty UNRWA can do to cut costs, though.
For example, it can close nearly all of its operations in Jordan, with some 2 million so-called refugees. The vast majority of them are Jordanian citizens, and UNRWA has never explained why it is needed to provide services like schooling and free medical care to people who are full citizens of Jordan, and who are not refugees by any definition. Why should Palestinian children in Jordan attend different schools from other Jordanians? Why should they get free housing in "camps" when they have the same opportunities as other Jordanians?
The UNRWA recipients who live in the West Bank and Gaza are not refugees either - after all, they live in the areas of British Mandate Palestine. To call the descendants of those who left from the pre-1967 borders of Israel "refugees" is insane, but it is even crazier to consider them "internally displaced persons" after 73 years. They are citizens of "The State of Palestine." They have passports recognized by most countries. They should be taken care of by their own governments of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas; there is no reason for UNRWA...Read More |
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