J Street Day 2: A Continuing Anti-Israel Tirade
On J Street’s second day, I attended the main morning plenary session, “History Before Our Eyes: Broader Implications of Movements in the Arab World.” The panelists were Mona Eltahawy, an Egyptian journalist; Ron Pundak, director general of the Peres Center for Peace and an architect of the original Oslo agreement; and Robert Serry, UN special coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. The chair was Ambassador Samuel Lewis, a former diplomat and former head of the U.S. Institute of Peace.
As I expected, this particular session would prove to be most revealing in what it showed about the approach J Street has towards critical issues. As the J Street program book announced the panel, “the politics of the Arab world could be the game-changer in 2011.” The first speaker, Robert Serry, set the tone by arguing that it was the job of the UN to promote fundamental change in the Arab world, because the “tide of history cannot be stopped; nor can it be hijacked by radical movements.” The best way to attain this end, he argued, was to help create viable democratic institutions by pushing forward the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.
The Palestinian Authority, Serry said, was developing solid reforms, and they had to be met by similar actions by Israel, especially that of rolling back Israel’s settlements. Palestinian statehood, Serry argued, was not sustainable unless Israel gave up Palestinian land it held in its own hands. Hebron, he said as an example, needed more land to expand and to create viable living arrangements for its Palestinian population. In making their demands known, he told the audience, Palestinians had to make a “root-and-branch” commitment to non-violence. And supporters of the Palestinians’ goals, a group he clearly thought included J Street, had to urge that Israel end its blockade of Gaza. Israel, he said, could not punish Palestinian children because of its own dispute with Hamas.
There must be, he ended, no expansion by Israel of existing settlements.
Next to speak was Ron Pundak, who began by saying that he might be a minority of one in Israel, but he would nevertheless present his ideas, however little they might be representative of the organization to which he was now speaking.
In Israel, Pundak complained, no discussion of what was really necessary was taking place. The “right-wing government,” as he called Prime Minister Bejamin Netanyahu’s administration, was “obsessed with the past, and saw any criticism of Israeli policies as anti-Israel.” Bibi, he went on, “has nothing to say and uses hard words,” but the substance of what he says is virtually nothing.
Today’s Israeli regime, Pundak said, was jeopardizing the Zionist dream he and others grew up with. If Israel did not pursue a real and honest peace — which he evidently thought it was not doing — later on there would no Israeli prime minister around to accept a genuine offer of peace when it might be made. To great applause, Pundak said the millions of Palestinians living in the area had to be citizens of their own state, a policy he argued the majorities of Israelis favor. But without real leadership, he warned, there could never be such an outcome.
Turning to the vital issue of Iran, Pundak actually argued that Iran was being used as a pretext by those who did not want a Palestinian state to stop trying to attain peace. The Iranians were indeed trying to gain a nuclear capability, Pundak said, but they were not intent on annihilating Israel. Clearly, the words of Ahmadinejad meant nothing to him, nor did the worries of prominent Israelis like the historian Benny Morris. “Israel,” Pundak said, “can live with a nuclear Iran and it must not base its policies on a worst-case scenario.” Thus, it should not be looking for new enemies as an excuse not to make peace. In Pundak’s vision, clearly, Israel had no real enemies, and it was only the Netanyahu government who pronounced that they did. For example, he said that the Israeli government was now “creating Turkey as a future new enemy,” ignoring the growing Islamic orientation and new alliances of the Erdogan government. Such an Israeli government, Pundak said, could not reach a comprehensive peace agreement with the Palestinians. It was the responsibility of Americans, therefore, to push the Obama administration to favor this course.
Next in line was Mona Eltahawy, the talented and outspoken Egyptian journalist who has been a presence on most television news programs the past few weeks. She was proud and jubilant about the uprisings throughout the Arab world. That in Libya, she emphasized, was not a civil war as many called it; rather, it was a war by Gaddafi against the people of Libya. Moreover, she said it was not about Israel, but rather about the desire of freedom and dignity by the Arab people. “It is,” she said to loud and boisterous applause, “about us for a change.”
All of these rebellions, Eltahawy said, were not supposed to take place because Arabs are supposed to be passive. “But,” she said, “we did it and are doing it. Nobody is being left unaffected.” She proceeded to list all the countries that have moved to rebellion since Mubarak fell, and argued that the Twitter revolution was preparing for more in the coming days. Turning again to Israel, she told the audience that at Tel Aviv University, she spoke with a new generation of Arab students who were born after 1979. Arab students there — a group of 15 — told her to tell the Israelis “we will hate them until they end the occupation and treat Palestinians with dignity.” This too got a huge ovation from the J Street audience.
As a goy who admires Israel and has long admired Jewish intellectual, scientific and cultural achievement, I am astounded that Saperstein, rabbi or not, would make the case for Israel to embrace the proposals of the UN thus honoring the traditional Hebrew “vision” of dignity, social justice and peace. Israel has been observing that vision for decades, in the face of steely Islamic intransigence. Can Mr. Saperstein and his fellow-thinkers explain how “social justice” can be applied when the core faith of those you are dealing with is centered on “social obeisance” and open declaration of a determination to obliterate the “vision”?
Few in America comprehend that the protests and uprisings in the Middle East are motivated entirely by the desire to rid those nations of the oppression of plutocratic despots, without the slightest intent of replacing them with democracy or any Western mores. Whether the Muslim Brotherhood succeeds or some other party or coalition, you may be sure that they will be fiercely anti-Israel. JStreet may not be united against Israel but Arab street certainly is, even by those who are pro-American.
Mr. Saperstein’s stance, however cloaked in religion, is evil, as is the UN’s. Israel’s situation is increasingly desperate and that amazing tiny spot of sanity in the middle of a regressive wasteland deserves staunch support by every freedom-loving individual or state.
My earlier posting was directed at yesterday’s report but it stands, in spades.
What’s With All the Jew Bashing?
There’s a certain undercurrent out there which seems more and more to be bubbling up to surface current status and it’s not good news for those of the Jewish extraction.
In Europe, where anti-Semitism reached its apogee in Germany and Austria following the punitive features of the Treaty of Versailles and the rise of Naziism, England has now become a hotbed of violence against Jews and the ADL is reporting significant anti-Semitism in France, Poland, and Hungary, as well as in Germany and Austria.
Here at home, Mel Gibson’s drunken tirade against a Jewish cop in Malibu in 2006 in which he allegedly said, “F**king Jews . . The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,” made headlines worldwide and his girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva dug his Hollywood hole even deeper when she revealed he once said, ”I want Jew blood on my hands.” Gibson is now gone, Oksana is suing him, he’s countersuing, and the cop, Deputy James Mee, is suing the LAPD.
Anyone else need a scorecard? It never seems to end, not just the court battles but the tirades.
Last summer, the leftist and Buddhist movie director Oliver Stone seemed to be channeling Gibson when he said, “Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people.”
Stone asked then answered his own question, “Why such a focus on the Holocaust then? The Jewish domination of the media. . .”
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3756)
…we will hate them until they end the occupation and treat Palestinians with dignity.
The deep, dark, dirty secret is that Israelis generally—there are exception—treat the Palestinians with far more dignity than the Palestinians treat each other. And far more than other Arabs treat them.
But, ssshhhh…..
P.S. Here’s an exercise for the imagination: Imagine that the role of the Palestinians and the Israelis were, somehow, reversed……
“the tide of history cannot be stopped; nor can it be hijacked by radical movements.”
Well, there was that little Nazi thingy in the 1930s and 40s but I guess that was just a blip to these guys. Besides the Nazis were very supportive of Palestinian national aspirations.
This is a very dishonest account of Eltahawy’s speech. I would encourage readers to go on the J Street website and actually listen to it. Among other things, Eltahawy correctly noted that Mubarak was no genuine friend of Israel and the United States and that the Mubarak’s state-run media fan the flames of anti-Israel and anti-American sentiments. That’s hardly the comment of someone who is anti-Israel or anti-American.
Eltahawy is only anti-Israel only if you start with the assumption that everything the current Israeli government does has to be supported and applauded without question.
It’s very shameful that Radosh and Rosen would rather stand with a dictator like Murarak than with the people of Egypt, and that they think that the only way to insure Israel’s security is to keep millions of Arabs forever under the thumb of brutal dictatorships. It’s ironic that there’s a type of right-wing Israeli nationalism that leads people to side with Pharaoh against the slaves, thus reversing the Passover story.
Gary Rosen looks at the peaceful protesters in Egypt and he sees Hitler. Isn’t this a good example of how morally corrupting right-wing Israeli nationalism is? It makes it impossible to see Arabs as human beings, deserving freedom and dignity.
Check web site Palestinian Media Watch. http://www.palwatch.org This is the organization that keeps tabs on what PA/PLO/Fatah/Abbas tell their own people vs what they tell the US/West. The curriculum and political/media rhetoric of hate of rabid anti-Semitism, justification for Jew murder, incitement to terror and worship of terrorists, and turning history upside down by denying any and all Jewish connection to ANY of the land, even Tel Aviv!
This is what “moderate” Palestinian leadership says to its own – in its own words. Only Hamas, Hezbolleh, Muslim Brotherhood, al Qaeda, Council on American islamic Ralations (CAIR) would approve of this kind of stuff. The talk about Team PA/Abbas having “reformed” is strictly mythology. This is incitement to terror through and through.
Make EVERYONE you know, especially those too busy to “get involved” become intimately familiar with this material. Invite PMW to make a presentation to the largest possible audience in your community. Congress has heard the presentation so it is certianly worthy of a presentation at your communal or religious organization. Don’t bother with a room full of “activists”. Get the word OUT. The only thing Team PA/Abbas is great at is “taqquia”, islamic approved deception. They have done a great job at deceiving the US/West about have “reformed”, wanting peace, etc.
Anyone who wants a safe, secure and PERMANENT peace will get busy exposing Team PA/Abbas for the stealth jihadis that they really are because it will will change EVERYTHIING. Once people know that ideologically the faux “moderates” are no different than Hamas/Hezbolleh/Muslim Brotherhood, only the tactics are different, the world will stop pressuring Israel and start pressuring Team PA/Abbas to CHANGE COMPLETELY.
Our goal: NO peace “talks” until Team PA/Abbas toss out its inciteful curriculum and politcal/media. Taling to PA/PLO/Fatah/Abbas is talking to those that are ideologically identical to people we brand terrorists – an act of appeasement that will take us exactly where appeasement has let before – WAR.
Sometimes, I like to read to the first remarkable statement; and there it was: “Palestinians had to make a “root-and-branch” commitment to non-violence.”.
The people of Moslem nations are so deeply—and, for so long a time—inbred from the practice of 1st cousin marriage, producing triple the rate of b. defects and low IQ with emotional instability, like a cult, necessarily, they are parasitic to the larger society unto which they attach themselves.
So, there it is: “Palestinians had to make a “root-and-branch” commitment to non-violence.”—speakers who would be taken to be educated, thoughtful, and having somewhat of worth to contribute on the topic, but yet, so far from apprehension of anything at all of the realm of possibility, . . .
And that above: “Palestinians had to make a “root-and-branch” commitment to non-violence.” not to be out-done for simple shock: “We will hate, . . .”.
Think about that for a moment—the source, the context, the present era: “We will hate, . . .”.
People with true pro-Israel sentiments, those that know that ALL of J St’s positions are based on wishful thinking about Palestinians and the Islamic world at best, and complete and total fabrications at worst (like the one about Iran not really wanting to destroy Israel, that settlements – as opposed to the ideology of Islamis supremacy being the key road block to peice, etc. ) will NEVER attend a J St. conference. THAT is why there is no other-than-j St. point of view presented. J St. has totally SELF-delegtimized and no SELF respecting American, Westerner, Israel supporter will associate with J St., in any, way, shape or form. Even uber-liberal Cong. Gary Ackerman felt the need to dump J St. We ALL now know that J St. is now “J”ihad St.
American Jews disagree with you about Israel. Why exactly is that wrong? I thought it was, y’know, part of the whole ‘democracy’ thing.
Or are American Jews supposed to vote and think en bloc? If so, you’re going to be disappointed, more so with each year that passes. What did you think, that Jews were somehow exempt from the pattern one sees in every other immigrant group in the US?
Isn’t J Street a creation of George Soros, antiJewish and anti Israel? Then why the surprise about the positions J Street takes against Israel and the conferences it arranges?
“Gary Rosen looks at the peaceful protesters in Egypt and he sees Hitler.”
You mean the ones who raped that reporter?
The reason there is so little “diversity of opinion” at a “J”ihad Street event is because since its Fall 2009 conference this organizations has shown its “true colors. It is a Jewish led jihadi organization. NO self respecting Jew, no self respecting member of the US Congress, will ever go near this group again. If “J”ihad Street was able to count members of Congress, the way AIPAC does at its “Roll Call” during its big annual DC confab, it would do so. It cannot because most members of Congress would NEVER show up.
As you write, this organization has plenty of money. It will be able to pay students to show up. Other than the roster of hate-Israel groups listed in “participating organizations”, and the hate-Israel organizations from which its “confirmed speakers” hail (all listed on its web site), no sentient person will show up at this group’s meetings, or that or any of its “participating organizations such as the nefarious New Israel Fund or Americans for Peace Now.
This is a confab for delusive Western apologists, witless sycophants of political Islam, the willfully blind, appeasers and collaborators.
After all, who wants to show up anywhere where a speaker says with a straight fact that Israel can live with a nuclear Iran since Iran is not planning to annihilate Israel!
Let’s face it, “J”ihad St. would NEVER permit Palestinian Media Watch, the organization that keeps tabs of what PA/PLO/Fatah/Abbas say to their own people vs what they tell the US/West. Team PA/Abbas curriculum and political/media rhetoric of nothing but incitment to hate and violence: rabid anti-Semticm and justification for murdering Jews, terror worship and honoring terrorists, delegtimization of the existence of Israel by saying Jews have NO historical connection to any part of the land, even Tel Aviv!.
Nope. “The Palestinisns – in their own words”, is something neither “J”ihad St. nor ANY participating organizations would EVER permit.
That is why only anti-Semites, rabid left wing anti-Zionists, and the occassional delusional type a la Ross (who thinks Palestinian leadership has “reformed”) are the only ones that will show up at a “J”ihad St. event.
What I find interesting in this report is the few statements like the one acknowledging that there *were* “modest statements that were positive about Israel and the positions the government took”
I find three things interesting about this: First, the obvious reluctance to really listen to those voices; Second, the total rejection of the possibility that ardent Zionist [like J Street and others] could possibly think that Israel or it’s government could do *anything* worthy of criticism and; Third, I have attended many AIPAC, CAMERA, David Project, etc. events and programs and have *never* heard *anyone* remotely suggest that there has been *anything* that any Palestinian has ever done or said that might be positive or, *anything* that Israel may have ever done that was *not* fine.
It continues to amaze me how people can endlessly deride others for doing what they themselves do. Bottom line: there *was* discussion and there *were* different views presented at the J-Street conference; there never are at meetings of the groups I noted above. Reporting what happened or was said at a conference is perfectly okay, demonizing those who were there because they don’t walk you particular line isn’t.
In the past year, “J”ihad St. has SELF delegitimized. How to put it completely out of business? Check web site Palestinian Media Watch. http://www.palwatch.org This is the organization that keeps tabs on what PA/PLO/Fatah/Abbas tell their own people vs what they tell the US/West. The curriculum and political/media rehtoric of hate of rabid anti-Semitism, justification for Jew murder, incitement to terror and worship of terrorists, and turning history upside down by denying any and all Jewish connection to ANY of the land, even Tel Aviv.
Let’s stop working so hard at “defending Israel”. Let’s show the world what the pretend “moderate” Palestinian leadership says to its own – in its own words.
Make EVERYONE you know, especially those too busy to “get involved” become intimately familiar with this material. Invite PMW to make a presentation to the largest possible audience in your community. Congress has heard the presentation so it is certianly worthy of a presentation at your communal or religious organization. Don’t bother with a room full of “activists”. Get the word OUT.
Exposing Team PA/Abbas for the stealth jihadis that they really are will change EVERYTHIING. Once people know that ideologically the faux “moderates” are no different than Hamas/Hezbolleh/Muslim Brotherhood, only the tactics are different, the world will stop pressuring Israel and start pressuring Team PA/Abbas to CHANGE COMPLETELY.
Our goal: NO peace “talks” until Team PA/Abbas toss out its inciteful curriculum and politcal/media rhetoric and adopt one of ecumenism such as: “all men and women are created equal irrespective of religion”!
“Rosen would rather stand with a dictator like Murarak”
I didn’t say a damned thing one way or another about Mubarak, you compulsive liar.
“Gary Rosen looks at the peaceful protesters in Egypt and he sees Hitler.”
Inventory this, sh*t-for-brains.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/democracy-or-jew-hatred-the-libyan-edition/
Not that I’m surprised a Teuton would blame it all on da Joooooooos.