Saturday, December 12, 2009 - Motzei Shabbat

1. Idiocy in Fredericton - Some of you may remember that in March of this year, I accompanied Dr. Yossi Olmert to a variety of speaking engagements in the region. The first appearance was at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, NB. The event turned to be a set-up, from a less than genuine welcome by the Chair of the Political Science Department, to a lukewarm meeting from top university officials, to a completely out-of-control audience, to an unsympathetic response from the university when asked later about the events of the day.

The following are pictures that I took that day - in the last picture, I believe that the man behind the man with the microphone is Naveed Majid - read on......

One of the extremely confrontational speakers that day was Naveed Majid, who is apparently a consulting engineer who lives and works in Fredericton. It is clear that his perspective has not changed from March until last week, as The Daily Gleaner, the local Fredericton paper, published his column as follows:

Israel, the bride, was so hopeful for her future.

She had suffered terrible abuse in the home of her former partner, Europe. Her neighbours eventually learned of the Holocaust, and although reluctant to offer their own homes for her to stay and recuperate, the Allies did find her a place with Palestinians - tenants in a property that had been acquired by them in 1917.

So, with British help, the courtship and shotgun wedding of Israelis and Palestinians began in earnest from 1940 to 1948.

However, while Israel was moving into the Palestinian home, it became evident that cracks were developing in the arrangement. Palestinians were losing a lot of room and their complaints were falling on deaf ears. Israel wasn't going to let anyone tell her what to do and no one was going to abuse her again.

So, one day in 1948 to everyone's surprise, she pre-emptively told the property manager, the British, that she was breaking-off her relationship with the Palestinians and was also taking over the property from the British. She called it the State of Israel.

Fast forward to 2009; more than 60 years have passed since the fateful wedding ceremony. The Palestinians are still there, albeit in the basement and the attic, while Israel has the run of the place.

However, the behaviour between the two towards each other has become increasingly acrimonious.

Both have agreed they need a divorce. And, although the Palestinians had no involvement in the abuse Israel suffered at the hands of Europeans, its effects have resulted in her not accepting the Palestinians to live along side her, even though they've been long-term tenants there.

As in any divorce, the details have become irrelevant. It doesn't matter who did what to whom or who hurt whom more.

The best interests of the children - the future - must be the priority. And, in order for each party to go its separate way, there must be a fair and equitable division of the marital property.

To date, these two haven't been able to settle their dispute in the court of public opinion. The complication is that the self-appointed judge overseeing the matter, the U.S., has been providing welfare cheques to Israel since 1948.

Israel now has one of the most powerful armed forces in the world and one of the few with nuclear arms, although she doesn't like to talk about that.

The evidence is clear that she is neither weak nor helpless, and all the while she continues to receive financial aid.

Furthermore, past justices have hurt resolution efforts by allowing Israel to drag her feet on dividing the marital property (the two-state solution) while Israel continues to buy more stuff to put in the house (developments in the Occupied Territories) and build more rooms (the Settlements).

This situation only increases the acrimony between the parties. And as the two hurl accusations at one another, it is the children who quietly suffer the most.

The good news is a new justice named Obama has been appointed the case. There is hope that he will finally put the best interests of the children first. But to make a difference, he cannot take sides or show favouritism.

The judge must, for starters, stop providing those welfare cheques to Israel if she continues to drag her feet and refuses to share the marital property. This would show, both Israel and the Palestinians, that this judge is serious about settling the matter while he is on the case.

It has dragged on for too long and too many children have been affected. Unfortunately, they've grown up learning only to continue in their parents' increasingly acrimonious behaviour towards each other.

The risk here is that without significant progress, there is a strong likelihood that the acrimony will only escalate to unprecedented levels.

Hopefully, with the marital property fairly divided in a two-state solution, the future of all our children can finally be one that includes peace in the Middle East.

Naveed Majid is a consulting engineer who lives and works in Fredericton. He can be reached at naveed@nb.sympatico.ca.

I submitted the following response - obviously, the space to reply was very limited, so I had to try to be very concise - in any event, I will be watching to see if it gets published:

To the Editor:

Perhaps it is appropriate that at this time of the year, when our Christian friends dream of a mythical Santa Claus flying from his magical toy shop at the North Pole, The Daily Gleaner published the opinion piece penned by Navid Majeed. Quite frankly, I am more inclined to believe in Santa Claus than in his utterly nonsensical recitation of the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Space to reply is limited, but here are just a few inconvenient truths to the contrary:

1. Israel is the ancestral home of the Jewish people.
2. The modern State of Israel was not created unilaterally by Jews, and it was not created in response to the atrocity of the Holocaust but by a partition plan adopted by the United Nations. The Jews in Palestine accepted the plan but the Arabs in Palestine rejected it, following which armies from 6 Arab countries invaded Israel.
3. What about foreign aid to the Palestinian? The billions and billions of aid that has been paid to Palestinians primarily by the Europeans and the Americans (estimated to be some $10 billion in the last few years alone) has largely been stolen by the corrupt Palestinian leadership (see “Arafat, Yassir” for example) or used to fund terrorism – it certainly has not been used to improve the lot of the ordinary Palestinian.
4. The constant reference to “children” is especially deceitful. The Palestinian leadership have a well-documented history of teaching their children a steady diet of anti-Semitism that would make even Hitler blush.

I could go on (and on) but one should get the point. Shame on Mr. Majeed for his terribly distorted view of history, and shame on The Daily Gleaner for publishing it. Please let your readers know when you would like to facilitate an honest and open debate about this very difficult issue.

As I said in my letter, one could go on and on in tearing apart the column. One point that I only touched upon briefly was his suggestion that Israel came into being to compensate Jews for the Holocaust. This is a "theory" that I have blogged about before - namely, "Holocaust inversion", and it is a particularly nasty form of anti-semitism.

In the words of Melanie Philips, "...the key motif is a kind of Holocaust inversion, with the Israelis being demonised as Nazis and the Palestinians being regarded as the new Jews. Israel and the Jews are being systematically delegitimised and dehumanised — a necessary prelude to their destruction — with both Islamists and the Western media using anti-Zionism as a fig-leaf for prejudices rooted in both mediaeval Christian and Nazi demonology."

A more detailed analysis can be found in this excellent article by Manfred Gerstenfeld of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

And if anyone thinks this is not real - here are some concrete manifestations of this dangerous myth:

And as an aside, the Arabs should not suggest that they were blameless in the Holocaust. Robert Satloff investigated the story of the Holocaust in Arab lands in his book "Among The Righteous" - here is a precis from an article by Satloff in The Washington Post.

We should also remember that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem took refuge in Berlin during the war, and that there were Muslim divisions in the notorious Waffen-SS (admittedly from Eastern Europe and not from Arab countries). By the way, the Grand Mufti had a nephew that also had an impact on things in the Middle East - you may have heard of him - some guy named Yasser Arafat.

To close on this issue, I believe (and wrote) that The Daily Gleaner was irresponsible in publishing the column without vetting it more carefully (or maybe even scarier, perhaps this was what made it through the editing process). In any event, I think that the overwhelming majority of Canadian newspaper readers have little interest in the nuts and bolts of the Middle East - and when they see an article like this, written rather softly and talking about children and peace - they will think that the article is authoritative. It is imperative that we all watch what is published, and when we think there is a misrepresentation, deliberate or otherwise - we speak up in some firm manner. That does not mean that people with opposing viewpoints cannot express their opinions - it just means that advocates for Israel need to be vigilant and factual.

2. "Illegal Settlements" - The Illegal-Settlements Myth - this is another beehive of untruths. I admit to having some mixed feelings on the settlements issue in certain limited respects, but nowhere near what most critics express so freely. And if anyone really believes that dismantling the "settlements" will bring peace, I have some bridges I'd like to sell you - would you like London Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge or the Golden Gate Bridge.

3. A Reminder of the Importance of Chanukah - Many of my non-Jewish friends ask me about the religious importance of Chanukah. My stock response is that there are only a few additional prayers inserted into our daily prayers to mark Chanukah - but that it is a very important cultural festival with deeper meaning in other respects. Naomi Ragen sums it up very well in Jews are here to stay - Israel Opinion, Ynetnews, and here is a good article from Jonathan Tobin - Commentary » Blog Archive » A Festival of Light and Freedom.

4. Iran - Gee, I took 10 days off from blogging, and the Iran issue is still not solved! Here are some recent articles on the issue:

• Danielle Pletka: The Right Sanctions Can Still Stop Iran - WSJ.com
• Pajamas Media » But We Can Still Trust Ahmadinejad on Nuke Talks, Right?
• Faster, Please! » The Iranian Time Bombs
• Faster, Please! » The Ironies of History: From Pearl Harbor to Iran
• Rumble in Iran – by Ryan Mauro | FrontPage Magazine
• Pajamas Media » Military Mutiny in Iran?

5. Professor Gil Troy - JPost.com | BlogCentral | Center Field | The double double standard - this comment struck me in particular:

"Israel and Zionism do not deserve special treatment - just equal treatment. The singling out of Israel, the demonizing of Zionism, frequently slide from the political to the pathological. The "New Anti-Semitism" comes from Arabs' exterminationist rejection of Israel's existence intensified by traditional anti-Semitic imagery and perfumed with human rights talk."

6. I Loved This Title (And The Article Too) - Carter and Goldstone: A study in mutual stupidity | Columnists | Jerusalem Post

7. Where Will This Lead? Canada: Muslim leader objects to bomb-sniffing dogs on buses and trains - Jihad Watch Will someone have the guts to tell these guys to buzz off, or will there be some politically correct response? I'm betting on the latter quite frankly.

8. Globe & Mail Columns - Shall we say - "provocative" columns from the "Mop & Pail" - Or you can play the Jewish card - The Globe and Mail and PM and the Jewish question - The Globe and Mail - in my experience, the first column is typical for Rick Salutin, whom I've criticized before in this blog.

9. Berkeley's Hillel - A further review of this issue - Pajamas Media » Whither American Jewry and Berkeley’s Hillel?. And by the way, I never heard in response to my email to the national Hillel organization - a disgrace.

10. Canada and Afghanistan - The latest furor in Canada concerns whether Canada's military turned over detainees to Afghan security forces when they knew that the detainees would be tortured. This arises out of comments from a Canadian diplomat, Richard Colvin. The Federal Government denies the accusations. A large number of Canadian diplomats have signed a letter critical of the Government.

Here are links to both sides of the issue - Protest grows against Tory government's attack on Colvin - The Globe and Mail, Opposition add fuel to detainee bonfire, Why I won't sign the diplomats' letter, and Believe it when you see it | Canada | News | Toronto Sun.

11. Copenhagen Conference - I guess that I have to give some links on this issue, so here they are:

• A media gone carbon-cuckoo
• Vindicating climate change skeptics | Salim Mansur | Columnists | Comment | Ottawa Sun
• Pajamas Media » Climategate: One Must Ignore 200 Years of Observations to Believe in AGW
• CTV News | AP: Climate science not faked, but not pretty

12. Great Music - I recently purchased the DVD of the Eric Clapton/Steve Winwood reunion concert at Madison Square Garden.

Fantastic DVD - if you like Clapton and his time with Blind Faith - you must buy it. Below is the YouTube video for the Buddy Miles song "Them Changes", which they played in his memory - the DVD version is of much higher quality.