The political left in many countries has a long history of defending despicable acts of violence when they are committed by the right people. From Norman Mailer’s campaign to free murderer Jack Abbott, who upon release promptly went and murdered someone else, to Bernadine Dohrn’s effusive praise of Charles Manson, right up to today’s disgusting international campaign on behalf of cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, there are few crimes too vile and horrendous for the left not to defend should the perpetrator belong to the correct movement or a fetishized oppressed minority.

Israel recently saw a particularly egregious example of this in the case of Sabbar Kashur, a Palestinian convicted of raping a young woman under false pretenses. According to initial media reports, Kashur was accused because he had claimed to be Jewish and the woman would not have slept with him had she known he was an Arab.

The Israeli left immediately rushed to Kashur’s side, accusing the entirety of Israeli society of racism and denouncing its justice system as akin to Nazi Germany or apartheid South Africa. Much of the foreign press quickly followed suit. But without question the most fervent defender of the convicted rapist was Haaretzcolumnist Gideon Levy.

Levy is the rough Israeli equivalent of Noam Chomsky or Gore Vidal in America. His specialty is rhetorically unhinged denunciations of everything and anything to do with Israeli society. In this case, however, he outdid himself, in more ways than one. In his column on the case, unsubtly titled in English,“He Impersonated a Human,” Levy painted a picture of Kashur as something akin to a Palestinian cross between Mahatma Gandhi and Jesus Christ.

See the rest of the story, here.

News that a crackpot minister at an incredibly tiny church in Florida may burn a Koran is a global story. The man’s plan is condemned by just about everyone, though some point out he has a constitutional right to do so.

One doesn’t, however, define a country by the most extreme, isolated individuals but by the mainstream. Muslims will only believe that Americans are all bigoted racists (mostly bigoted racists or have any significant number of bigoted racists) if they are told lies about America. Similarly, Americans are being very foolish if they believe this kind of disproportionte nonsense.

Nowadays, the United States can easily win any tolerance competition in the world.  On the other hand, a lot of Americans are very much in the race with the rest of the world about who can be the most anti-American.

See rest of the essay, here.

This is cross-posted from This Ongoing War

Wherever there are Jews, you will find them being introspective today. It’s the eve of the Jewish New Year, a time for trying to understand what this year just ending has meant to us. Also what we want in the year about to start unfolding.

As bereaved parents, thoughts of what terror and its exponents do to people’s lives are never far from the surface. On days like today, they are right at the top of the pile.

Our lives and those of our children – and we imagine the lives of many of our neighbours and friends too, but there we speak with far less familiarity – are permanently changed in the wake of the murder of our Malki. The extent of the impact naturally varies in both extent and nature. But it’s there.

The idea that there are people who can harbor a hatred so profound that they will happily die in their own man-made explosion just so long as they know they killed some of the people they hate (us), is incomprehensible. The more you think about it, the more impossible it is to understand.

But not for everyone.

The Palestinian Authority sat down, via its highest representatives, in Washington this past week to talk peace with representatives of Israel. A little earlier (as reported in  the PA’s official newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida on Aug. 28, 2010 and via the invaluable Palestinian Media Watch) other representatives of the same Mahmoud Abbas PA regime bestowed a public honour on a woman called Um Youssef Hamid a resident of the Al-Amari neighbourhood of Ramalla, the seat of Abbas’s PLO-dominated government.

Knowing about this honour, about Mrs Um Youssef Hamid and the values she has inculcated in her offspring and, by extension, the values that the political leadership of the Palestinians seeks to inculcate in their society, is – to say the least – illuminating. The sort of insight that might contribute hugely to one’s introspection.

We don’t know more about Mrs Um Youssef Hamid than what the handful of news reports – until now, all of them Israeli since this event is evidently of no interest to the wider ranks of the global media – can tell us. Here’s what they tell us.

Mrs Um Youssef Hamid was honoured in a special ceremony (depicted on this Hebrew-language Israeli news site) by the Minister for Prisoners Affairs in the PA government based in Ramallah, the part of the Palestinian Arab polity not yet controlled by Hamas, and his senior officials. She was honoured because her sons were responsible for dozens (dozens!) of attacks on Israelis, the overwhelming majority of them on civilians. The sort of attacks that we call terrorist. The sort of cold-blooded and deliberate terrorist attacks that took the lives of more than 1,100 Israeli civilians, including the life of our fifteen year-old daughter Malki.

The sons of Mrs Um Youssef Hamid brought tremendous honour on her, on her family, on her people and on the Mahmoud Abbas regime. Nasser Abu-Hamid killed 7 Israelis and tried to murder 12 more. Today he is in an Israeli prison serving seven life sentences plus 50 years. The second son, Nasr Abu Hamid is serving 5 life sentences for his involvement in two terror attacks and arms dealing. Sharif Abu Hamid: 4 life sentences for involvement in several terror attacks and accompanying a jihadist bomber to a March 2002 attack. Muhammad Abu Hamid – serving 2 life sentences plus 30 years for involvement in multiple terror attacks. Rounding out the family’s distinctive specialness, a fifth son – Abed Almun’am Muhamed Yousef Naji Abu-Hamid – was apprehended and terminated by Israeli forces in a firefight in 1994 after carrying out several terrorist murders.

Enough. That’s them. Those are their values. What’s important for our society is to know against whom we are defending ourselves, and the ideas and ideology that motivate them.

We, for our part, and our neighbours and our society are driven to do acts of a very different sort. Our Malki’s death left an unfillable hole in our lives. For the past nine years, her family and friends have been engaged in creating an honour of an infinitely more constructive kind than the one we just described. It’s called Keren Malki, the Malki Foundation.

As we go into Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, this evening, we ask you to spend five minutes viewing a new video produced by Keren Malki UK, the London-based group of volunteers who are helping us communicate and support Keren Malki’s message of goodwill and good deeds.

Please click below to view the video, and please condider passing it along to your friends.

We don’t need ministers and ceremonies to articulate the values that animate the Jewish people and that run like a golden thread through three thousand years of Jewish history. All we need to do is remember lives like that of Malki, and the good that she embodied.

Shana tova! May this new year be a year of happiness, good health, peace and accomplishment for all people of goodwill.

From Blair’s perspective this religious struggle defines the Middle East. He states: “To me, you can’t understand Hezbollah unless you understand the role of Iran; or understand Lebanon unless you understand Syria … or understand either country in its present state unless you understand the history not just of the region but of the religion, how it saw itself, how it had developed its own narrative, how it saw its own predicament.”

This includes a remarkable simplification of the Israel-Palestine conflict, which he claims “is used as a potent source of friction and war because of religious difference”. The impact of other significant forces, notably…imperialism, are conveniently sidelined.

(Oh yes, of course, Western “imperialism” is the root cause of the conflict.  How naive of me to think otherwise.)

There are very few places, other than the Guardian, that a “progressive’ could seriously doubt the nefarious influence of the Iranian sponsored Shiite terrorist group on Lebanon and the broader region.

Just for clarity, it should be noted that Hezbollah has been involved in the death of approximately three hundred Americans.

Further, as testimony to the U.S. Congress (by Jeffrey D. Feltman, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, and Daniel Benjamin, Coordinator, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism) in June, 2010, demonstrated:

While Iran continues to provide a significant portion of Hizballah’s funding, Hizballah has also broadened its sources of financial support in recent years. Hizballah is now heavily involved in a wide range of criminal activity, including the drug trade and smuggling. It also receives funds from both legitimate and illicit businesses that its members operate, from NGOs under its control, and from donations from its supporters throughout the world. Hizballah also has established its own commercial and communications networks outside the Lebanese legal system that in essence rob the Lebanese treasury of the tax revenues that would come via legitimate licensing, registration, and tax reporting.

…

Hizballah’s destabilizing actions also have a global reach. The recent conviction of a Hizballah cell in Egypt for spying, plotting attacks on resorts frequented by tourists, and arms smuggling illustrates Hizballah’s growing regional reach and ambitions. In Iraq, we are also aware of Hizballah providing training and other support to Shia militant groups. As of early 2007, an Iran-based individual by the name of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis formed a militia group, employing instructors from Hizballah to prepare this group and certain Jaysh al-Mahdi Special Groups for attacks against Coalition Forces in Iraq. Hizballah’s web also extends to Europe and diplomatic missions abroad, where Hizballah planned to attack the Israeli Embassy in Baku. While this attack was foiled, and the perpetrators are now imprisoned in Azerbaijan, these actions illustrate the group’s continued disregard for the rule of law, both inside Lebanon and outside its borders.

…

Time and again, we have seen that Hizballah’s weapons and Syria’s support for its role as an independent armed force in Lebanon are a threat, both to Lebanon and Israel, as well as a major obstacle to achieving peace in the region. Hizballah exploits the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict to bolster its own interests and influence. The group claims to maintain arms in order to defend Lebanon from Israeli “aggression” and derives much of its popularity from its image as a “resistance” group. In truth, Hizballah is actively using the conflict with Israel in order to gain regional popularity and justify its vast arsenal, acting as a point of leverage in the region for Iran. One of Hizballah’s rhetorical points regards Israeli overflights of Lebanese territory. The UN Secretary General has cited in his reports on UNSCRs 1559 and 1701 that these overflights are a violation of UNSCR 1701, a resolution which we are all committed to seeing fully implemented. Yet there is an unmistakable connection between these overflights and Hizballah’s blatant and ongoing efforts to evade the arms embargo that is the essence of UNSCR 1701; Hizballah’s activities create the very conditions that Hizballah then uses as a pretext to justify its own destabilizing behavior, putting Lebanon at severe risk.

…

Hizballah’s insistence on remaining armed, aggressive, and unaccountable threatens important American interests and goals – especially our interests in Middle East peace and regional security, in containing the spread of destabilizing weapons and terror financing, and in a strong, democratic, and independent state of Lebanon.

Quite naturally, the piece by Phillips’ elicited reader responses arguing that Israel, and not Hezbollah, was the real threat to regional peace:

And, of course, who is and is not a useful idiot for radical Islam is wholly subjective.

Shana Tova!

Ahmadinajad apparently distraught over Castro's recent criticism

Jeffrey Goldberg interviewed Castro in Havana, and while you should read the whole thing (linked below), here are some surprising nuggets:

[Castro] began this discussion by describing his own, first encounters with anti-Semitism, as a small boy. “I remember when I was a boy – a long time ago – when I was five or six years old and I lived in the countryside,” he said, “and I remember Good Friday. What was the atmosphere a child breathed? `Be quiet, God is dead.’ God died every year between Thursday and Saturday of Holy Week, and it made a profound impression on everyone. What happened? They would say, `The Jews killed God.’ They blamed the Jews for killing God! Do you realize this?”

He went on, “Well, I didn’t know what a Jew was. I knew of a bird that was a called a ‘Jew,’ and so for me the Jews were those birds.  These birds had big noses. I don’t even know why they were called that. That’s what I remember. This is how ignorant the entire population was.”

“He said the Iranian government should understand the consequences of theological anti-Semitism. “This went on for maybe two thousand years,” he said. “I don’t think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews. I would say much more than the Muslims. They have been slandered much more than the Muslims because they are blamed and slandered for everything. No one blames the Muslims for anything.” The Iranian government should understand that the Jews “were expelled from their land, persecuted and mistreated all over the world, as the ones who killed God. In my judgment here’s what happened to them: Reverse selection. What’s reverse selection? Over 2,000 years they were subjected to terrible persecution and then to the pogroms. One might have assumed that they would have disappeared; I think their culture and religion kept them together as a nation.” He continued: “The Jews have lived an existence that is much harder than ours. There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust.” I asked him if he would tell Ahmadinejad what he was telling me. “I am saying this so you can communicate it,” he answered.”

As Goldberg noted, one should remember that “Castro is the grandfather of global anti-Americanism”, and he has been a severe critic of Israel.  He has, also, denied his own populace even the most rudimentary civil and political rights.

However, its hard not to take at least some pleasure in the fact that his comments to Goldberg will no doubt pose a dilemma for Iran’s apologists and radical lefties the world over.

Gosh, given Castro’s statements about the Holocaust denying Iranian President – and this seeming new feud between such respectable “revolutionaries” – what are decent, respectable anti-American, anti-Zionist, anti-Imperialists to do?!

h/t ModernityBlog

Read Goldberg’s full essay, here.

The Jewish/Israel Lobby controls U.S. foreign policy:

Jewish lust for blood; Israel delights in murdering innocent Palestinians:

By Phyllis Chesler

Yale University’s Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism hosted a major conference in which I was privileged to be a participant. “Global Antisemitism: A Crisis of Modernity” was envisioned by Professor Charles Asher Small who founded the Initiative. The conference was also sponsored by the Issac and Jessie Kaplan Center for Jewish Studies and Research, University of Cape Town, in association with the Vidal Sasoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism, Tel Aviv University; The Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, Indiana University; and the Rabin Chair Forum, George Washington University.

My plenary panel was the only panel which focused on women and anti-Semitism. It was chaired by Jerusalem based scholar, Jennifer Roskies. My co-panelists included Thyme Siegel, whose speech was titled: “Sisterhood was powerful and Global. Where Did it Go?” and Dr. Nora Gold whose speech was titled: “Fighting Anti-Semitism in the Feminist Community.”

We had the very best time when we met the previous afternoon. Thyme, Nora, and I go back, way back, to the 1960s in feminist America. These days, Thyme, an independent researcher and Women’s Studies teacher, is holding an Israeli flag at Berkeley when her former friends stand holding a Palestinian flag; she has come a long, long way from her matriarchal, lesbian separatist days in Eugene, Oregon. Dr. Nora Gold is using her Toronto-based research to educate feminists about racism against Jews. She is often successful. I look forward to working with them and with our very gracious Chair Jennifer, soon again.

Make no mistake. Others also enjoyed what we had to say and indeed, said the most complimentary things to us afterward. This is no small feat given the greats who were in attendance. I want to thank both Jennifer Roskies and Charles Small for this amazing opportunity.

The History and Psychological Roots of Anti-Semitism Among Feminists, Their Gradual Palestinianization and Stalinization

YALE AUGUST 25, 2010

By Phyllis Chesler

Four score and ten years ago women won the right to vote in the United States. And thirty years ago, in 1980, I stood with the Israeli delegation in Copenhagen at the United Nations conference on women—the true precursor of the anti-Zionist conference in Durban in 2001. Twenty-nine years ago, right here in Connecticut, at the University at Storrs, I convened a panel at the annual convention of the National Women’s Studies Association to challenge American feminists about both their anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.

I had been doing this since the early 1970s but even I could not have predicted the rapid and extreme Stalinization and Palestinianization that would take place among academics and activists in general. I could never have imagined that the western intelligentsia, the “good” people, including feminists, would make so tragic an alliance with Islamic barbarism and misogyny.

I became a feminist leader in 1968-1969. I remain one. Most of the other feminists of my generation are no longer engaged in the historical moment.

Are women racists? We might as well ask: Are women human beings?

But are women also anti-Semites?

To do justice to this subject might require another conference. Women have internalized the same prejudices as men have. Like men, women are also sexists and racists. Women are also consummate bystanders at the crossroads where evil meets its prey. The majority feminist view has viewed women as “weak” or “innocent” non-actors, powerless to affect the destiny of nations. This is a fantasy and bears no relationship to reality.

Women are also consummate collaborators. Women try to choose powerful men as protectors. They do not ask them what they do at the office or at the concentration camp.

Are educated women, human right activists, feminists, lesbian feminists, Jewish lesbian feminists anti-Semites too?

Hell yes. Neither education, talent, ambition, privilege—nor vulnerability, pariah status, or a sense of grievance—seems to inoculate people against the virulent virus of anti-Semitism.

Thus, I have lived to see the day when feminists—most, but not all of whom, are women—seem to care more about the alleged “occupation” of a country which does not exist (Palestine) than they care about the real Islamist occupation of women in “Palestine.” American and European feminists are postcolonial, postmodern, anti-interventionists; in the name of “political correctness,” “cultural relativism,” and “cultural sensitivity,” they no longer believe in men and women’s universal human rights and no longer take a stand against apartheid—at least not when it is practiced by Muslims.

Instead, many feminists scapegoat Israel as an apartheid state and refuse to understand that Islam is the largest practitioner of gender and religious apartheid in the world.

Anti-racism, not anti-Semitism, is the feminist priority—except where Israel is concerned. To such feminists, Zionism still equals racism. They do not understand that precisely the opposite is true: Anti-Zionism equals racism. And that it is the new anti-Semitism—that and its Islamic version.

For the last decade, Jewish and non-Jewish feminists have marched in pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel rallies, signed newspaper ads and petitions to divest from and boycott Israel—yes, even gay and lesbian feminists who would be tortured to death in Muslim countries, did so. These professed “humanitarians”—who carry on about the recent Turkish assassination flotilla—do not take as strong a stand against stoning or forced face-veiling. Some feminists think it’s “liberating” or even the ultimate feminist choice. Most feminists do not take a stand against forced marriage, child marriage, first cousin marriage, polygamy, and honor-related violence, included honor killing. They fear that doing so might be seen as “racist” or as culturally insensitive.

Like Stalinists, they saved their fire to protest Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, former President George Bush, and American and Israeli military “occupation” of Muslim lands.

If challenged, they turn stone-faced and accuse their challenger of racism and of McCarthyism. Thereafter, they slander and shun you.

I have been battling feminist anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism since 1970.

In the early 1970s to mid-70s, together with Aviva Cantor and Cheryl Moch, I organized press conferences and major Jewish Feminist speakouts. I worked with a nascent feminist movement in Israel, brought American journalists, including feminists, to visit Israel, and spent hours soliciting celebrities and feminists to sign petitions against the infamous UN “Zionism equals Racism” resolution.

In 1980, while working at the United Nations, I stood with the Israeli delegation in Copenhagen. We experienced an early version of the Durban conference, an unbelievable verbal and psychological pogrom, organized by the Soviets, the Arab League, the PLO, the Iranians, (all in black coverings), and supported by left-oriented Europeans, including feminists.

In 1981, at Storrs, Connecticut, I convened a panel at the National Women’s Studies Association meeting. The subject was “Women, Feminism, and Anti-Semitism.”

In the summer of 2000, I learned that my friend and colleague, Israeli-American left feminist, Dr. Marilyn Safir, a Haifa-based academic psychologist, had been disinvited from an international feminist conference to be held in Turkey. The reason? The feminist organizers decided that the fact that Marilyn is a Jew, and an Israeli, “might” make the Arab and Muslim women uncomfortable. The conference, if it was held at all, was completely “judenrein.” It was either canceled—or held secretly.

I and others, including Israeli professor of Law, Frances Raday, wrote letters on Marilyn’s behalf. But most feminists did not see this disinvitation as an “anti-Semitic” and therefore as a “racist” act. Women, you see, cannot be accused of racism—unless, of course, they are Jewish women. Or white women. The racism of people of color is unmentionable, invisible.

In the last twenty to thirty years, many feminists misapplied hard-won feminist concepts in the service of demonizing Judaism and Israel. For example, in 1988, I persuaded my friend, famed anti-pornography and anti-prostitution activist, Andrea Dworkin, to join me on her first-ever trip to Israel.  In 1990, in her novel Mercy, she compared the Jewish God to a Nazi without mercy. And, in a 2002 work of non-fiction, Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women’s Liberation, she compared the Jewish state to a “pimp” and a “John” and viewed the Palestinians as their “prostitutes.” Truly, I have no comment but, at the time, I did publish a short one in the Jewish media.

In 2002, at a feminist conference at the state university at New Paltz, Dr. Ruchama Marton, an Israeli Jewish psychiatrist, likened Israelis to “batterers” in a marriage. Guess who is the “battered wife?” None other than the Palestinians. Are the Israelis and Palestinians married? Is the feminist view of marriage that it is like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Why was only Israel and Palestine discussed at a conference which was advertised as a conference about “Women, War, and Peace”?

The academic postcolonial literature is infected by an across-the-board view of Palestinians as the symbol of all things noble and the Jews and Israelis as symbols of evil.

Women’s Studies programs offer a steady stream of anti-Israel speakers. At the University of California, for example, moderate Muslims, ex-Muslims, anti-Islamist Muslims, and pro-Israel Muslims are never invited or funded, and Women’s Studies professors do not attend their very rare lectures.

From 1980 to 2010, feminist left organizations and leaders, both male and female, did not condemn the Palestinian Arab Muslim plane hijackings and homicidal bombings of Israeli civilians. Instead, they glamorized the terrorists, marched wearing kaffiyehs, signed petitions to boycott and divest in Israel. They did not offer to ride the buses in Israel in 2002 as “human shields.”

Instead, they signed ads published in the mainstream media condemning Israel for defending herself or which singled out Israel and America as Evil Empires. In 2003, communist feminist and California-based Women’s Studies professor, Angela Davis, former SDS member Bernardine Dohrn, actress and feminist Jane Fonda, and feminist playwright Eve Ensler all joined Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, and many others in signing such an ad.

Feminist writers and activists persistently demonized Israel and glorified Palestinian terrorists. British journalist and feminist Jan Goodwin did so in her 1995 book Price of Honor: Muslim Women Lift the Veil on the Islamic World, as did feminist activist, Ms. magazine editor and writer Robin Morgan in her 1989 book The Demon Lover, two books which the authors updated after 9/11. Both authors blamed the suffering of Palestinian women, children, and men on the Israeli occupation, not on Islamic misogyny or Arab tribal customs.

In June of 2004, I was the first pro-Israel and pro-democracy feminist guest on Pacifica’s KPFK radio station in Los Angeles. After years of on-air Jew-hatred and Israel bashing on KPFK, the program, “Feminist Magazine,” run by a feminist collective, had taken a principled position against this unacknowledged form of racism and had invited me to discuss my views on anti-Semitism, Israel, democracy, and Islamic gender apartheid.

Tricia Roth and Melissa Chiprin bravely interviewed me. I said the kinds of things that we are probably all saying here at this conference—and all hell broke loose. Even while we were still on air, the switchboard lit up with angry listeners, most of whom were Jewish left feminists. That was only the beginning. Feminist calls mounted for the censure and removal of “Feminist Magazine” from the air and for control of the feminist collective. An online protest petition was launched which characterized what I said as “racist,” and my views as “anti-feminist.”  The Los Angeles chapter of Women in Black made a bid to take over the collective.

Such accusations, coupled with potential and real physical violence, would happen to me many times on campuses. I would be accused of being a “racist” whenever I described Islamic gender apartheid and how it had penetrated the West. Eventually, I could only appear on campus with a bodyguard, sometimes with more than one.

I was also invited—and disinvited—by the Women’s Studies program at Cambridge. I was not allowed to speak at veteran feminist events. Left feminist attempts were made to have conferences that had invited me to disinvite me.

In October of 2004, a small group of San Francisco-based feminist activists, members of Women in Black and Brit Zedek, traveled to Duke University in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, to support the Palestine Solidarity Movement Conference that was taking place there. It would be one thing if such feminists had come to protest both the systemic Palestinian abuses against women as well as the war-related burdens that Israel, acting primarily in self-defense, has visited upon both Palestinian and Israeli civilians, especially women, children, and the elderly.

But, they did not have a balanced or particularly feminist agenda. Although many activists were lesbians or pro-gay, they had not come to protest the Palestinian persecution and torture of suspected homosexuals in Gaza or on the West Bank nor did they seem to know that Israel has granted political asylum to Palestinian homosexuals, including those who have literally been tortured and nearly killed by other Palestinians. Instead, these American feminists wore keffiyas, political buttons and tee-shirts that read “We are all Palestinians.”

The Betrayal of the Ideologues

The American and European Left and feminist and gay movements have made a marriage in Hell with Islamist terrorists. The same Left that has still never expressed any guilt over their devotion to communist dictators who murdered one hundred million of their own people in the service of a Great Idea, have now fatefully joined the world Jihadic chorus in calling for the end to “racist” Zionism and to the Jewish Apartheid and “Nazi” state.

These westerners share an extraordinary psychological rage which requires a scapegoat and cleaning messianic promises, a refusal to look within, an overwhelming need for group approval, an inability or refusal to think as independent individuals, an adolescent in-your-face rebelliousness towards certain authorities—coupled with an adolescent, slavish adoration of other authorities, a desire for cathartic violence, for the ecstasy of mob action, and the most uncanny and frightening ability to scapegoat Jews precisely because leftists have not been able to achieve their desired New World Order. If some ideal can’t be achieved, then the Jews must pay.

In 2007, a Jewish Israeli feminist researcher at Hebrew University, doctoral candidate Tal Nitzan, blamed Israeli soldiers because they refused to rape Arab and Palestinian women; she claimed this constituted “racism” against Palestinians.

Earlier this year, 2010, a team of researchers led by a female Harvard social scientist blamed Israel in the pages of The Lancet, a British medical journal, for an increase in Palestinian wife-battering in Gaza and on the West Bank. The researchers did not even consider the role that radical Islamification might play in the oppression of women or the fact that Gaza is ruled by terrorist gangsters and this might cause an escalation of violence towards women. Honor killings (and a relevant, recent study actually existed) were not included in their measures of violence against Palestinian women. Why? Because that cannot be blamed on Israel or on the West. I published a letter challenging this study in the pages of The Lancet.

In the summer of 2010, Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University and former spokesman for the PLO, a man who also happens to be a friend and former dinner companion of President Obama, signed an appeal for money to send yet another aid ship to Gaza named “The Audacity of Hope,” the title of Obama’s second autobiographical book. He publicly challenged the President, saying that “if the name [of the boat] is a problem for the administration, it can simply insist that Israel lift the siege: end of problem, end of embarrassment.” A number of so-called high-profile feminists have signed on to this new boat venture including Medea Benjamin, the co-founder of CODEPINK; Angela Y. Davis, for whom I once marched when she was jailed in New York City; Starhawk, a Jewish feminist Wiccan; and my old friend, the writer Alice Walker.

Closing Points

Some academics and activists are merely opportunists. Anti-Zionism (which is one of the things that is “new” about anti-Semitism, something I identified in 2002-2003—that plus the Islamification of anti-Semitism) is seen as a necessary ideology in order to succeed as professors, authors, journalists—and in a wide variety of other professions.

Some academics and activists are not capable of original thinking and simply follow the herd. They are dreadful conformists. They have literally been indoctrinated to believe that America and Israel are evil and are the cause of world suffering. They want to abolish world suffering by abolishing Israel.

Some academics and activists are nostalgic for the 1960s and are still so furious at America that they want the barbarians to bring down Wall Street in a way they themselves never could. They believe they alone will be spared as America and Europe goes down because they are “politically correct.” They do not believe the barbarians will come for them.

They are also slumming, erotically thrilled by contact with real outlaws, real killers, Really Bad Men. Look: Male serial killers have no end of fans, including marriage proposals after they have been jailed.

Some academics and activists—and here I am thinking of many Jews—are exercising their secular version of religious Judaism. They are “repairing the world” but not for Jews, mainly for non-Jews, the strangers at the gate, and for the enemies of America and Israel. Although such Jews may be secularists or atheists, they behave with a fundamentalist-style religious zeal. They truly believe that their work is what alone will save the world, fulfill the Jewish ethical mission, redeem, even justify Israel’s existence. Their work consists of criticizing Israel, partly because they feel that Israel’s existence must be justified. They believe that Israel must be better than other nations to justify its right to exist.

Some academics and activists—and here I am thinking especially about Jewish feminists and lesbians—believe that they will lose their pariah status if they scapegoat Jews, indeed, if they are the first to do so. This alone will allow them to live. This is what makes them tough and trendy “radicals.”

Such feminists, leftists, and gay liberationists have not thought through what their lives might be like under Islamic rule. In fact, they still deny that there’s a “problem” with Islam and insist that the main problem is with American and Israeli colonialism, imperialism, and militarism.

All these Israel-bashers may be far more terrified of Islamic Jihad than I am—and are assuming the position of dhimmi-appeasers long before it is necessary to do so.

I have not come here today to bash feminists. I am one. As I’ve said, I don’t understand what happened to the best minds of my Second Wave generation. However, our feminist work is certainly not worthless and was not done in vain. Today, I do my feminist work with Muslim and ex-Muslim feminists and dissidents. We work on Islamic gender apartheid. My vision of universal human rights has not changed. Feminism now provides a bridge in our collective fight to defend both Israel and the West. Such anti-Islamist Muslims are marginalized and need our support. We need to convince western governments to use them, listen to them. We need to unify and fight the war to delegitimize Israel. It is the key to preserving the West.

It was a story heard around the world. As was originally reported in Haaretz, an Israeli Arab man had consensual sex with an Israeli Jewish woman under the pretext that he was a Jew. After intercourse, she discovered that he wasn’t a Jew after all, and filed “rape by deception” charges. An Israeli court upheld the rape charges, sentencing the Israeli Arab to 18 months in jail. Here was a clear, incontrovertible case of Jewish racism against Arabs, legally upheld by an Israeli court! Needless to say, the media went spinning into overdrive.

Perhaps none was more eloquent than Gideon Levy of Haaretz: “He Impersonated a Human”.

Sabbar Kashur wanted to be a person, a person like everybody else. But as luck would have it, he was born Palestinian. It happens. His chances of being accepted as a human being in Israel are nil. [...] He knew that he had no chance with the Jews, so he adopted another name for himself, Dudu. Two years ago he met a woman by chance. Nice to meet you, my name is Dudu. He claims that she came on to him, but let’s leave the details aside. Soon enough they went where they went and what happened happened, all by consent of the parties concerned. One fine day, a month and a half after an afternoon quickie, he was summoned to the police on suspicion of rape.

His temporary lover discovered that her Dudu wasn’t a Dudu after all, that the Jew is (gasp! ) an Arab, and so she filed a complaint against the impostor. Her body was violated by an Arab. From then on Kashur was placed under house arrest for two years, an electronic cuff on his ankle. This week his sentence was pronounced: 18 months in jail.

Are you ready for the finale? You have to appreciate it in full. Take a deep breath.

It was no coincidence that this verdict attracted the attention of foreign correspondents in Israel, temporary visitors who see every blemish. Yes, in German or Afrikaans this disgraceful verdict would have sounded much worse.

Mein Deutsch ist nicht so gut, und Afrikaans spreche ich nicht. English I speak quite well, and searching google for “rape-by-deception” articles from two months back was not particularly difficult.

BBC:

An Arab man convicted in Israel of rape because he pretended he was a Jew when he had consensual sex with a Jewish woman has called the verdict racist.

The Forward:

An Israeli judge this week convicted Sabbar Kashur, a 30-year-old Jerusalem man, of rape and sentenced him to 18 months in prison. But his real crime was lying. The woman was outraged when Kashur immediately dressed and left her, and even more upset when she found out he was an Arab, and filed her complaint against him. He was charged with rape and indecent assault.

Andrew Sullivan:

But it’s the visceral emotional core of this that is so offensive. It’s about racism, religion and the risk of miscegenation. It’s about the deep disgust of some Israeli Jews toward Arabs, upheld by the courts. It’s a variant of the racial sexual panics of the Jim Crow South.

And it goes on, and on, and on.

CNN, Guardian, NYTimes, ABC News.

It is only now, some two months after Israel’s image has been blackened, after its courts have been compared to those of the Jim Crow South, and its Jewish population tarnished as ethno-religious racists, that the truth begins to poke its unwelcome head, AND ONLY IN HEBREW!!!

Haaretz:

Based on the incomplete facts published thus far in the case, Kashur’s [the Arab Israeli's] role as a victim became established over the past month and a half, and rightfully so. However, according to the testimony of the complainant, the full story appears to be much more complex, and the victim is the one Kashur left naked in the staircase of the building on 13 Ben Hillel Street (publishing her name is forbidden and she will be called here B.). The new details shed completely new light on this case, and haven’t been published until today because they were first revealed in B.’s testimony in court, which was classified as it was said in a trial behind closed doors. Following the request of “HaIr” [local newspaper in Jerusalem – E], the court recently declassified the testimony and paved the way for its publication. The testimony details in 100 pages B.’s tragic life story and her version of the events that happened on that afternoon two years ago, and is exposed here for the first time.

The article’s full translation, by Elizabeth Tsurkov, can be found here. The gist of it is as follows. A woman was raped. She was no angel – sexually abused by her father, a history of working as a prostitute. The victim’s prior history of abuse and prostitution left her with a fragile mental state that came out under the duress of cross-examination. Concerned about her credibility, despite the physical evidence which confirmed the rape, the Prosecution chose to accept a plea bargain with the Defense, on condition that the defendant serve jail time.

The defendant was temporarily freed while the case was under appeal, and began to give media interviews, where he outlined his version of the story – that “she wanted it”, etc. The media pounced on the sensational, and utterly unfounded, element of racism, based on the information that was released to them – which was that a rape-by-deception case between an Arab man and a Jewish woman “who wanted it” resulted in jail time. Meanwhile, the Prosecution was caught in a double bind – it had signed off on reducing the charges to rape-by-deception, and was bound by secrecy to not reveal that the original charge of rape had the weight of evidence.

The only indication of all this you will find in the English version of Haaretz (at time of writing) is not an apology by Gideon Levy, but an apologetic, feminist appeal for women to trust one another when a case of rape is alleged, even when racism is claimed. Unless you are already fully informed on the updated story, you wouldn’t know what to think, because no new details of the case which explain this apology are provided. I was left to dig for the story on my own, to find the sole source on the internet who had translated this dramatic case into English.

I’m at a loss for words. Having followed this unseemly story back in July, having read all that smug, self-righteous drivel about Israel’s descent to barbarism, I can’t avoid a creeping sense of betrayal and anger. The news items on this subject that circulated the world, casting Israel as a racist country… the editorials… the blogosphere… How do you turn that clock back? This is another Jenin, another al Dura, another baseless smear, so quickly and eagerly accepted by the media, so deliciously relished by the punditry that we could hear their lips smacking from across our computer screens.

I’m going to focus on Drudge, who ran with the story, and Andrew Sullivan, whose disgusting bile on the subject – “the risk of miscegenation” (!!!) – I will personally force him to stuff back into his filthy mouth. Perhaps if he had spent less time stroking his perverse Palin Obsession and more time vetting his sources, he would not have misled tens of thousands of his readers off the cliff with Gideon Levy.

UPDATE: Victor’s letter to Andrew Sullivan

Andrew,

Your sources were wrong. The Israeli Arab DID rape the Jewish woman. It was not consensual, and nothing to do with racism came up during trial. The charge was lowered from forced rape to rape-by-deception because the victim’s prior history as an abused woman, past prostitute with a fragile mental state (but not physical evidence which confirmed the rape!) caused the Prosecution to accept a plea bargain with the Defense, on condition that the man serve jail time. The Prosecution was prevented from revealing the man’s culpability in the forced rape due to secrecy laws surrounding the victim’s testimony and associated evidence, because they had already signed off on the plea bargain. Meanwhile, the man was freed while the case was appealed, and spoke to media that “she wanted it” and invented this story about being imprisoned for impersonating a Jew. Gideon Levy ran with it, and you followed lock stock and two smoking barrels.

The details have been published in Hebrew, but not in English.

Here is a translation.

Based on this new information, you need to fully retract your remarks, which in light of new evidence are unfounded and vicious:

But it’s the visceral emotional core of this that is so offensive. It’s about racism, religion and the risk of miscegenation. It’s about the deep disgust of some Israeli Jews toward Arabs, upheld by the courts. It’s a variant of the racial sexual panics of the Jim Crow South.

Some humility and self-reflection over your disgusting statement is in order.

-Victor

P.S. I lay out the full story on my blog, with a demand that those, like you, who ran with the “racism” angle retract their remarks.

I know it’s commonplace to read in the latest issue of Time or Newsweek that Obama is a god, that Islamophobic Americans are collectively prejudiced against Muslims, that the response after 9/11 was overblown and unnecessary (over 30 subsequent terrorist plots have been foiled, and, for some reason, renditions, tribunals, Guantanamo, Predators, intercepts, etc., have all been embraced by the Obama administration), but the recent Time piece on Israel by a Karl Vick is probably the most anti-Semitic essay I have ever read in a mainstream publication.

Among Vick’s interviewees is Heli Itach, a modern-day Shylock who brags about the money to be made selling condos in Jerusalem (“‘Even when the Qassams fell, we continued to sell!’ says Heli Itach, slapping a palm on the office desk”). The accompanying photo shows carefree Israelis on the beach.

In fact, Vick argues, the Jews are so obsessed with making money that they don’t much care what happens in the future: “The truth is, Israelis are no longer preoccupied with the matter. They’re otherwise engaged; they’re making money; they’re enjoying the rays of late summer. A watching world may still define their country by the blood feud with the Arabs whose families used to live on this land and whether that conflict can be negotiated away, but Israelis say they have moved on.”

Read rest of the essay, here.

“This verdict, in effect turning the obfuscation of race into a criminal offence, also reveals the extent to which Israelis consider Palestinians to be abhorrent.”

Sherwood and her co-writer quoted Ha’aretz correspondent (and part-time Palestine Solidarity Campaign groupie ) Gideon Levy:

“Gideon Levy, a liberal Israeli commentator, was quoted as saying: ‘I would like to raise only one question with the judge. What if this guy had been a Jew who pretended to be a Muslim and had sex with a Muslim woman?

‘Would he have been convicted of rape? The answer is: of course not.’”

Adding for good measure:

“Arabs constitute about 20% of Israel‘s population, but relationships between Jews and Arabs are rare. There are few mixed neighbourhoods or towns, and Arabs suffer routine discrimination.”

Well now the full details of the case have come to light due to the publicity ban on the victim’s testimony having been lifted and they indicate an entirely different situation to the one so enthusiastically promoted by Sherwood and Shabi.

Last Friday, Ha’aretz – the newspaper which first broke the story as an example of Israeli ‘racism’ – published the updated details of the case on its website, but in Hebrew only. Interestingly, this time around they have apparently been too busy to provide an English translation. Fortunately, the enterprising Elizabeth Tsurkov has done the work for them and the English version can be read here.  Read it for yourself, but, the long and short of it is that racism had nothing to do with it.  The “Rape by deception” case turns out to have actually been a “brutal rape of a vulnerable and abused woman.”

Of course the Guardian was not the only foreign news outlet to enthusiastically jump on this band wagon. Like many others the Guardian once more proved that it is always prepared to believe the worst about Israel and that niggly issues such as the validation of facts or the reliability of sources will not stand in the way of a good opportunity for defamation, delegitimisation and the promotion of stereotypes. As I wrote back in July in response  to Shabi’s article about this case:

“Shabi’s consistent and dramatic amplification of every Israeli flaw, real and imagined (to impute racism to the very essence of Zionism) is indicative of the consistent journalistic myopia displayed by the “progressive” Guardians at ‘Comment is Free’ when it comes to Israel – a political malady which French writer Pascal Bruckner would aptly term the “racism of the anti-racists.”

CiF’s editors really do need to start thinking twice before succumbing to the stereotypical group-think of fools rushing in which so often undermines journalistic standards on their pages.  Yaacov Lozowick is quite right when he says that now is the time to demand retractions. And so, Guardian editors, we would like to see an immediate, full and prominent apology for the smearing of the Israeli legal system and Israeli society as a whole as racist.

And whilst you’re at it, we haven’t forgotten this story either.

h/t Victor Shikhman, whose post on the same topic will be appear on this site shortly.

There’s an awful lot which can be said about Islamist poster girl and ‘Talibanette’ Yvonne Ridley and none of it is pleasant. Some suggest that she suffers from Stockholm syndrome but personally I would not afford her that excuse. In my view she is a common or garden attention-seeking narcissistic opportunist who has achieved a form of dubious celebrity status she was incapable of finding elsewhere by remodelling herself as an evangelical promoter of mass paranoia among Muslims. As much as she cuts a toe-curlingly risible figure, she is also a dangerous one, because like so many of her mentors, paymasters and colleagues, she is obviously lacking in even the most rudimentary moral boundaries.

CiF Watch recently cross-posted an article from Richard Millet’s blog concerning the Al Quds day demonstration in London.  Lo and behold, Ridley subsequently appeared in the comments to whitewash that Khomeni-inspired carnival of hatred. This patron of ‘Cageprisoners’, European President of the Muslim Women’s Union, member of ‘Respect’ and activist for ‘Free Gaza’ (a conglomerate including the ISM: obviously not averse to a little ‘troofing’ of its own and ‘Viva Palestina’ did not hang around for long and left numerous questions unanswered, one of which is why she agrees to work for the Holocaust-denying propaganda organ of the Iranian dictatorship known as Press TV.

Anyone who has followed the ‘career’ of the woman about whom George Galloway reportedly said “Yvonne, you make me look like a moderate” cannot be remotely surprised that she would end up in bed with one of the world’s most vicious and repressive regimes. Her ability to contextualize suicide bombings and video-taped beheadings, pride in the fact that her political party ‘Respect’ (the epitome of the ‘Red-Green alliance’) is “Zionist-free”, sympathy for just about every Islamist extremist in the book, whitewashing of the  post-election crack-down in Iran and dabbling  in 7/7 ‘troofology’ are ample evidence of a disturbing disconnection from reality mixed with a nasty underlying racism.

Her public flouting of the law by having herself filmed boasting that she gave money to a terrorist organization indicates that like her Respect colleague and fellow Press TV presenter George Galloway, she obviously considers herself to be above the legal constraints which bind ordinary mortals. Her public glorification of terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hizbollah would indicate the same. This is a woman who either lacks the self-regulatory little voice within – which keeps most people inside the boundaries ethically defensible behavior – or gets a kick out of transgressing such basic moral norms.

Of course what is or is not morally defensible differs vastly between societies, and in the circles  in which Ridley has become a self-styled celebrity,  views such as hers are far from being a grounds for being  socially ostracized because she has aligned herself with the most dangerous and extremist groups and regimes on the planet.  There’s a chicken and egg question here (albeit a pretty academic one in my view); did Ridley’s existing psychological make-up draw her to like-minded extremists, or does hanging around with extremists in the hope of becoming ‘somebody’ have an obviously destructive effect upon her sense of moral boundaries? Either way, the result is one which is clear for all to see. ‘Sister’ Ridley co-operates with, promotes, excuses and cheerleads for at least two Jew-hating, Holocaust-denying, murdering, aspirational genocidal theocratic dictatorships. In my book that makes her not only an anti-Semite, but a generally disgusting person all round.

She can deny being a Holocaust-denier till the proverbial cows come home, but the fact is that the Tehran mouthpiece Press TV which pays her wage does promote Holocaust denial, in perfect harmony  with the policies of the anti-Semitic regime by which it is funded. It has published (on its website) the theories of Nicholas Kollerstrom and promoted the despicable ‘Lady’ Renouf among others. Press TV’s anti-Israel rhetoric is equally infamous and includes the promotion of discredited historians such as Shlomo Sand.

Ridley’s faint-hearted protestations on Richard Millet’s blog do not cut the mustard. Not only is she in the pay of an anti-Semitic Holocaust denying regime, but, on her own website, she also engages  in a form of Holocaust denial known as Holocaust inversion -defined anti-Semitic under the EUMC guidelines.

And that, ‘Sister’ Ridley, is the trouble with hanging around with anti-Semites who are incapable of distinguishing between fact and fantasy: it’s a bit like spending time in a cow shed in that, at some point, one becomes incapable of discerning that there is a stench at all, let alone that one smells of it oneself.  In other words, Ms. Ridley, there are certain things that the best friends you choose to keep won’t tell you.

The only question which remains is how long the British people will have to put up with Ridley’s justifications of terrorism, terrorist funding, anti-Semitism and racist incitement before their government wakes up and begins enforcing the laws it enacted to protect the country from such clear threats to its security.

Dr. Fred Gottheil

I and others have often written that many ‘critics’ of Israel who purport to be concerned with issues of human rights, fairness, racism and so on actually have a different agenda. We’ve claimed that they are more concerned with demonizing the Jewish state than helping its alleged ‘victims’.

Sometimes it’s not hard to show that ‘non-political’ human rights groups, for example, actually have a financial interest in bashing Israel. For example, there is the case of Human Rights Watch fund-raising in Saudi Arabia, or the huge sums donated to extremist non-governmental organizations in Israel by the European Union.

But what about the legions of anti-Israel academics who are always prepared to bash Israel in the vilest terms? They claim to be motivated by concern for human rights — but are they?

Now Fred Gottheil, a professor of Economics at the University of Illinois, has devised an empirical test to find out. Dr. Gottheil took the case of a petition addressed to President Obama after the Gaza war in December-January 2008-9:

[Dr. David C.] Lloyd’s petition was notable not only for its criticism of Israeli policy — that is standard fare among the set of academics who subscribe to a post-colonial view of the world — but rather for its demonizing of the Jewish state.

His technique was anything but novel. It associated Israel with pre-Mandela South Africa. Lloyd’s South African-linking brushstrokes were many and crude, citing “collective punishment,” “apartheid regime,” “racist regime,” “besieged Bantustans,” “crimes against humanity,” and “ethnocidal atrocities.” These were layered on his fact-distorting canvas like icing on a poisoned cake.

The petition was signed by nine hundred academics, mostly in the US. Gottheil decided to test their commitment to human rights:

But accepting as genuine the petitioners’ stated goal of seeking social justice in the Middle East, I thought it fitting to contact the signatories of the Lloyd petition to offer them yet another opportunity to express their commitment to social justice in the region, this time by endorsing a Statement of Concern regarding human rights abuses practiced against gays and lesbians and against women in general in many of the Middle Eastern countries, including the territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority. The idea was really uncomplicated: Since they expressed a concern about social injustice in Israel, they might also be willing to express their concern about human rights abuses practiced against women, gays, and lesbians in other parts of the Middle East.

The detailed material for this Statement of Concern was gathered from sources as widespread as U.N. agencies, survey research units, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, scholarly journals, and social justice-related NGOs such as Asylum-Law and Human Rights Watch.

The Statement provided evidence of both the practice and the condoning of the practice by religious, political, and even academic authorities of honor-killing, wife-beating, and female genital mutilations. Documentation was offered for specific countries, for specific practices, and referred to specific authorities condoning the practices identified.

Gottheil carefully checked the credentials of the signers and excluded those who were outside of the US, or who were non-academics. In the case of graduate students, only those with evidence of teaching or published research were included. He ended up with 675 names, to which he sent the Statement of Concern, along with a request for endorsement. He did not indicate any connection between his statement and the Lloyd petition.

You probably know what’s coming, but it is even more outrageous than you think:

Only thirty of the 675 “self-described social-justice seeking academics” responded, 27 of them agreeing to endorse the Statement. But these 27 signatories represent less than five percent of the 675 contacted. In other words, 95 percent of those who had signed the Lloyd petition censuring Israel for human rights violation did not sign a statement concerning discrimination against women and gays and lesbians in the Middle East.

But wait! There’s more:

As many as 25 percent of the Lloyd petition-signing academics were faculty associated with gender and women studies departments. Yet of these, only 5 endorsed the Statement calling for attention to the discrimination against women in the Muslim countries of the Middle East. Put more bluntly, 164 of the 169 faculty who had chosen to focus their life’s work on matters affecting women, and who felt comfortable enough to affix their names to Lloyd’s petition censuring Israel, chose not to sign a Statement of Concern about documented human rights violations against gays, lesbians, and women in the Middle East. [my emphasis]

This does not come as a surprise to me, who often marvels at the sheer insanity of academics, especially those in ethnic or gender studies programs. An example was the Israeli Ph.D. candidate who argued that the fact that IDF soldiers do not rape Arab women proves that they are racists, and won an academic prize!

A common view on the Left is that all of the problems of Palestinian Arab women are a result of Israeli oppression (although many Palestinians themselves are quite clear about their culture’s poor treatment of women). I recall a radio program on Berkeley’s KPFA on the subject of  “The Palestinian Women’s Movement”: the presenter explained that this ‘movement’ was all about supporting their men in the struggle against Israel.

Perhaps the academics who signed the Lloyd petition but did not sign Gottheil’s statement held this view. Of course “the occupation” doesn’t explain the violent oppression of women and gays everywhere else in the Muslim Middle East.

Another possibility is that the academics take the racist position that backward Muslim Middle Easterners can’t be expected to know better, and therefore their behavior can be excused. Israel, on the other hand, is held to a standard so high that even self-defense is prohibited.

Or maybe they think that everything Israel does is wrong because it is a ‘colonial power’. It’s interesting that they don’t see the truly imperialist Iran — which controls Syria, is taking over Lebanon by way of Hizballah, and is working to assert its hegemony over Iraq — in that light.

Maybe the simplest explanation is best: while they favor Palestinian nationalism, Iranian imperialism and radical Islamism — and are prepared to keep quiet about the victimization of women and gays so as to avoid damaging these causes — they find the idea of Jewish nationalism, as expressed by the one Jewish state, repugnant.

This first one (still not deleted) suggest that Israel “wrote the blueprint for terrorism”.

The link he provides to “prove” such an utterly preposterous allegation, was a site called The People’s Voice.

Just to give you a flavor of the content on the “social justice” site, here are a couple of stories they’ve published:

And, then there was this comment (still posted at CiF)

And, there was this ugly post (not deleted) which brings up the ugly specter of “rich Jews” (who he suggests are phony Zionists) too tied into making money to care much about anything:

Finally, there was this, which subtly characterizes Israel as a racist state which is obsessed with “ethnic purity.”

Of course, the claim  that Israel is unique in its desire maintain ethnic homogeneity is patently false. Jus sanguinis (Latin: right of blood) is a social policy by which nationality or citizenship is not determined by place of birth, but by having an ancestor who is a national or citizen of the state. It contrasts with jus soli (Latin for “right of soil”).  Apart from France, jus sanguinis still is the preferred means of passing on citizenship in many continental European countries, with benefits of maintaining culture and national identity.

Here are a few examples:

Greece’s ethnic/religious homogeneity: The constitution of democratic Greece recognizes the Greek Orthodox faith as the “prevailing” religion of the country, and an estimated 97% of Greek citizens identify themselves as Greek Orthodox. How’s that for purity?

Bulgaria’s “Law of Return”: Article 25 of the 1991 constitution specifies that “person[s] of Bulgarian origin shall acquire Bulgarian citizenship through a facilitated procedure.” Article 15 of the Law on Bulgarian Citizenship provides that an individual “of Bulgarian origin” may be naturalized without any waiting period and without having to show a source of income, knowledge of the Bulgarian language or renunciation of his former citizenship.

Croatia’s Law of Return: Article 11 of the Law on Croatian Citizenship allows emigrants and their descendants to acquire Croatian nationality upon return, without passing a language examination or renouncing former citizenship. In addition, Article 16 permits “a member of the Croatian people who does not have a place of residence in the Republic of Croatia [to] acquire Croatian citizenship” by making a written declaration and submitting proof of attachment to Croatian culture.

Spain’s “Law of Return”: Regardless of place of birth, or how far removed one is from an ancestor born in Spain, those born to an original Spaniard (whether or not your parent still retains Spanish citizenship, or is still living) are entitled to original Spanish nationality. (Original Spaniards are those who were born Spanish, no matter where they were born.) The grandchildren of those who emigrated due to political or economic reasons are also entitled to original Spanish nationality

Poland’s “Law of Return”: From the Constitution of Poland, Article 52(5): “Anyone whose Polish origin has been confirmed in accordance with statute may settle permanently in Poland.”

Turkey’s “Law of Return”: Turkish law allows persons of Turkish origin, and their spouses and children, to apply for naturalization without the five-year waiting period applicable to other immigrants.

Official Islamic States: There are 57 nations who are currently members of the Organization of Islamic States – that is, 57 self-described ISLAMIC states (many of which have Muslim populations exceeding 90%, and many of which explicitly prohibit the practice of religions other than Islam).

I could go on and on.

And, of course, the term “ethnic purity” is not an accidental choicer of words.  Its meant, of course, to convey the belief that Zionism is inherently racist – an updated version of the notorious (and since repealed) “Zionism = Racism” defamation of the Arab and Soviet sponsored UN Resolution 3379.

65 years after the Holocaust there’s 13 million Jews left in the world, and ONE state with a Jewish majority. The fact folks are bothered by this – and, apparently, find other nations’ desire to maintain ethnic/national/religious homogeneity perfectly normal – is, at best, grossly hypocritical.  At worst, it demonstrates the extreme malevolence towards Jews and Israel by many of the Guardian’s fellow travelers.