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H/T Elder of Ziyon
I was sharing with a fellow blogger recently that I occasionally read something by far left Jewish critics of Israel that is beyond merely risible, but, rather, so beyond the pale, so unhinged and full of self-hatred (those Jews who are ‘proud to be ashamed to be Jewish’) that its almost as if we’re being set up: that such commentary is the work not of Jews, but of trolls trying to provoke us.
While working on several Guardian related posts, I took a short break and came across commentary from the group Jewish Voice for Peace about Passover so inane that I can barely wrap my mind around the thought process involved in its conception. But, it should provide context the next time the far left Jewish group weighs in on the Israeli Palestinian Conflict.
(The Guardian causes me enough Tsoris that I occasionally allow myself a bit of blogging comic relief, and a sincere H/T to JVP for the low hanging fruit).
While I’m all too familiar with the Jewish far left in Philadelphia (where I lived most of my life), and have seen “alternative” Passover Haggadot (Jewish texts that set forth the order of the Passover Seder), before, this one by JVP truly jumps the shark.
As Elder of Ziyon noted: The Jewish Voice for Peace “Haggadah” could have easily been written by Hamas in its attempt to portray Jews as the evil protagonists.
Here are excerpts from the JVP document. (Emphases mine, unintentional comedy courtesy of JVP)
In the wake of the revolutions throughout the Arab World, and particularly in Egypt, we want to acknowledge the distinction between “mitzrayim” — the narrow place, where the story we tell at Passover takes place — and Egypt, the modern-day nation-state. We are not conflating contemporary Egyptians with the pharaoh and taskmasters that appear in the Passover story.In the U.S., and worldwide, anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia saturate our media and our culture, and we must be vigilant to oppose it and interrupt it at every turn.
The word Yisrael (Israel) when found in the liturgy (religious text) does not refer to the modern nation/state of Israel, rather it derives from the blessing given to Ya’akov (Jacob) by a stranger with whom he wrestles all night. When the stranger is finally pinned, Ya’akov asks him for a blessing. The stranger says,“Your name will no longer be Ya’akov but Yisrael for you have wrestled with G-d and triumphed.” Therefore when we say “Yisrael” in prayer we are referring to being G-d-wrestlers, not Israelis.
Here is JVP’s addition to the Seder plate:
Olive – Symbolizing the self-determination of the Palestinian people and an invitation to Jewish communities to become allies to Palestinian liberation struggles.
JVP on the symbolism of breaking the middle matzoh:
As we break the middle matzoh we acknowledge the break that occurred in Palestinian life and culture with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 when hundreds of villages were destroyed and hundreds of thousands of people displaced. This damage cannot be undone — but repair and return are possible.
General JVP guilt on the offense of Israel’s existence.
How will we, as Jews, bear witness to the unjust actions committed in our name?
Our freedom was bought with the suffering of others. As we packed our bags that last night in Egypt, the darkness was pierced with screams. May the next sea-opening not also be a drowning; may our singing never again be their wailing. We shall all be free, or none of us shall be free because our liberations are intertwined.
This is a JVP version of the part of the Seder where Jews dip wine onto their plate to symbolize the plagues on Egypt by God as punishment for enslaving the Jews. Here’s what they think we should be thinking about, regarding Israeli villainy and Palestinian suffering, when dipping the wine.
- Poverty
- Restrictions on movement
- Water shortage
- Destruction of Olive Trees
- Home demolitions
- Settlements
- Political prisoners
- Profiteering
- Denial of the Right of Return
- Erasing histories
JVP version of Dayanu (If God had bestowed to the Jews even one of the many miracles enumerated in the Haggadah, it would have been enough)
When soldiers rounded up Palestinian men and massacred them collectively – we should have said enough.
When Palestinian men were forced into labor camps, where their labor included destroying Palestinian homes – we should have said enough.
When the on the Eve of Passover, in an operation called, “Cleaning Out Chametz” the Haganah shelled the Palestinian residential quarters of Haifa, forcing 70,000, 90% of the city’s Palestinian residents, to flee – we should have said enough.
JVP, on the bitter herb on the Seder plate, traditionally meant to symbolize the bitterness of slavery under Pharaoh:
We taste a bit of maror, the bitter herb, as it calls to mind the bitterness of slavery, the bitterness of life under occupation.
On the meaning of the Hillel sandwich
We prepare to eat the Hillel sandwich with the sweetness of haroset and the bitterness of maror, highlighting the challenge to us to taste freedom in the midst of oppression, to be aware of oppression even as we are free, we hold the contradictions of bitter and sweet.
I truly don’t know where to begin, and fisking their version is almost too easy, so I decided to provide an addition to their text: My version of Guardian Left/Seumas Milne/JVP friendly “Why is this night different from all other nights?”
What makes this night different from all [other] nights?
On all nights we eat sitting upright or reclining, and on this night we all recline!
The tray is restored to its place with the matzoh (organic, and made with union, and non-exploitative, labor) partly uncovered. Now we say “We were slaves. . .”
We were slaves to
Pharaohrightwing Jewish thought in Egypt, and theL-rd, our G-dyoung progressive Jewish community took us out from there with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm. Ifthe Holy One, blessed be Hethe anti-imperialists had not taken our fathers out of Egypt, then we, our children and our children’s children would have remained enslaved toPharaohZionism, the Jewish lobby, neocons, militarism, & capitalismin Egypt. Even if all of us were wise, all of us understanding, all of us knowingthe Torahthe Israel section of the Guardian, we would still be obligated to discuss the exodus from Egypt; and everyone who discusses the exodus from Egypt at length is praiseworthy.
Hey, its only a draft.
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One of the reasons why Elder of Ziyon is my favorite pro-Israel blogger is his capacity to dish out well-deserved mockery to Israel’s critics, many of whom are often self-caricatures of the anti-Zionist Guardian-style Left – people beyond satire, who we’d have to invent if they didn’t actually exist.
His post today, “The humiliation in Gaza continues: The Andaluseyya Mall” is classic Elder, and puts in proper perspective the utter lunacy of those who continue to claim – be they flotilla-ists, flytilla-ists, or merely those duped by their political theatrics – that, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, there’s anything even resembling a “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza.
You can see the full post here, but here’s a photo of one of the new stores in the mall, which should at least give you a taste of Gaza’s unimaginable misery.
The abused Gazans put up a brave front as they browse the men's suits, suits that they will be forced to eat because of their crushing poverty from the illegal Zionist siege.
Related articles
- Gaza’s misery? Revisiting two Guardian reports which cited Gaza unemployment at 45% (cifwatch.com)
- Harriet Sherwood feels Hamas’ pain (cifwatch.com)
- Mya Guarnieri laments possible demise of flotilla stunt; Quotes activist who blames “Zionist tentacles” (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian’s pro-Palestinian activist Harriet Sherwood manufactures the ‘news’. (cifwatch.com)
- The ‘flytilla’ – a cameo appearance by bigots and extremists within the anti-Israel campaign in the UK (cifwatch.com)
- Israel’s success + Flotilla’s failure = The Guardian’s boredom (cifwatch.com)
- Harriet Sherwood, and the Guardian’s continuing ideologically inspired sins of omission (cifwatch.com)
Image courtesy of Elder of Ziyon and StandWithUs
This is cross posted by Elder of Ziyon
It is fun to watch how Israel haters react to my series of posters celebrating Zionism.
One such hater is someone named Ben White, who apparently is one of the leaders of the anti-Israel crowd. He wrote a book called “Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide” and has been praised by the usual crowd of anti-Zionists like Ali Abunimah and Ilan Pappe.
His reaction to my posters was to put up his own spoof poster on Twitter, replacing “Zionism” with “Hasbara” and tweeting “Israel at 63: This is Hasbara!”:
Not having ever heard of him, I thought this was a compliment, because I think it is a very good example of what hasbara should be. Only when MargieInTelAviv responded
ah can’t stand the truth can you? Why not check it out?
Did I realize it was meant to be an insult.
I responded:
Of course it is #Hasbara. And it is true. Hasbara is no more an insult than #Zionism!
Ben:
#hasbara in 2011 = treating kids in Haiti, evicting kids in #Palestine
He then included a link to “Hasbara Buster” who claims that Israel’s good deeds aren’t good in themselves, but an insidious plot to redirect the world from talking about Israeli crimes.
Me:
You are a sad man to get so upset over Zionists doing good things.
Ben:
you are a not-so-bright man if u think it’s the “doing good things” bit that’s objectionable
Me:
Ah. One sided propaganda against Israel=good, telling the other side=evil. Got it.
Ben:
No, it’s called using acts of charity in strategy 2 defend apartheid. But nice #projection though
Me:
Even your example disproves your thesis. Org is private. But your hate overrides all. Sad.
He then tried to change the subject, with a photo that I suppose is meant to illustrate Zionist evil. Which is the usual modus operandi of people like him – they need to change the playing field in order to pretend to win.
But think about his main argument: he believes that when Israel – or in this case, ordinary Israelis – do good things, they have an ulterior motive: to cover up crimes. And when people like me publicize how great Israel is, we also have an evil motive: to cover up Israel’s crimes.
In other words, to these mental midgets, Israel is inherently evil. Everything it does is evil. This is the premise that informs all of their activities. No shades of grey, no nuance, not even the possibility of admitting that things are more complex than they pretend. When Israel does something seemingly bad, it proves it is evil, when it does something good, it’s just more proof that it is evil.
Logical people, who make up their minds based on evidence, can look at both sides of a story and decide. Haters, however, already know the answer, and any evidence to the contrary they use to “prove” their own point!
Let’s once again look at the oppressed Palestinian Arab cancer patients who enjoyed a day in the snow courtesy of the IDF, the subject of my first poster:
Looking at these photos drives the haters crazy, as we have seen. They cannot reconcile the idea of Israelis – especially Israeli soldiers – actually doing something nice for the people they supposedly despise and who are, they believe, being ethnically cleansed by the very same soldiers. The cognitive dissonance must be painful. They must therefore invent their own elaborate frameworks of bizarre conspiracy theories to reconcile the obvious truth about Israel with their own, twisted, hate.
How can oppressed Palestinian Arab kids allow themselves to be used as pawns by the evil IDF? How dare they laugh and smile and have fun with the symbols of Zionist atrocities? Better that they refuse to go sledding in Mount Hermon, and stay in their hospitals, than go and have fun when there is a slight chance that someone might photograph them and use them in such a terrible evil hasbaristic way! Don’t they see that they are exactly like the Jews in Theresienstadt before the Red Cross visited it in 1944? Their smiles are lies! Their fun is a lie! The pictures are probably Photoshopped! The IDF was probably mowing them down with machine guns!
There is an entire industry out there, with people who are emotionally – and, in this case, financially – invested in demonizing Israel. Showing the truth is a direct threat to their worldview, and for them, this cannot be allowed. To them, Israel is a uniquely evil entity that must be destroyed, and tons of solid evidence showing that they are completely, irrevocably wrong is simply something else that they must do battle with their only weapon: lies.
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H/T Elder of Ziyon.
This video was created by Elder reader “TheAngryBell“, and is based on Nick Cohen’s recent essay published in The JC, Dialogue with a Western Leftist.
H/T Elder of Ziyon
Of course, those who believe, with an almost religious intensity, that the United States is a hotbed of anti-Muslim bigotry won’t be moved by this study.
However, anyone with even the faintest interest in an empirical analysis of this issue might be interested in a new 40 page report by the Center For Security Policy which not only debunks the claim that Muslim Americans are disproportionately victimized by religiously inspired bias crimes, but clearly demonstrates Jewish victims are, in fact, far more likely to be the target of such crimes.
As such figures don’t affirm (CiF America blogger) Michael Tomasky‘s preconceived conclusions, we can expect him to ignore these findings.
Harriet Sherwood is back online to give us the benefit of her “wisdom” on the terror attack in Jerusalem.
The article is a mixture of statements of the obvious – I give you,
“… Its impact will be felt far beyond the people injured in the blast and those who witnessed the explosion….”
Well, yes…
As well as (curiously enough, given that it’s Harriet writing), a glimmer of understanding of why the IDF was engaged in acting against Hamas-linked terrorists in Gaza.
She even acknowledges that Hamas was responsible for the firing of the 50 or so mortar shells into Israel (although she couches it in somewhat equivocal terms).
She goes on to refer to the pressure on Hamas to do something for the armed struggle in order to satisfy the Palestinian people, (and here, totally unwittingly, she alludes to the fantasy ideology which has driven much of Hamas’ mad and fruitless acting out, which I have discussed in-depth elsewhere on CiF Watch).
So far so mediocre and hardly her usual offensive self, but let us not forget that she writes for the Guardian and sure enough later in the article out it comes:
“…. It is far too early to say what Wednesday’s bus blast heralds. But, at the very least, it is bound to reinforce Netanyahu’s belief that Israel has “no partner for peace”, a phrase that brings bitter laughter from observers who say Israel shows little sign of wanting to make peace…. “
Pardon me?
Is Harriet seriously trying to argue that Netanyahu is WRONG to believe that Israel has no partner for peace in the PA? Dear Harriet, permit me to offer a little lesson in reality testing since you and your colleagues at the Guardian seem, (how shall I say?) somewhat deficient in this area:
You yourself admitted that there was a terrorist act in Jerusalem (OK you didn’t actually call it a “terrorist” act, unlike William Hague, the British Foreign Minister who condemned it in those terms, but you compared it to the terror attacks during the second intifada)
You then, quite correctly, named Hamas as the main culprits in the shelling of southern Israel. So far so good but hang on in, because this is where it may get difficult for you to understand:
True, Abbas condemned the massacre at Itamar, but on the day after that massacre he dedicated a town square to the memory of a suicide murderer!
Is this the action of a man who (a) tells the truth or (b) says only what he thinks his audience want to hear, and on the strength of that (c) can be trusted to mean what he says and (d) is therefore a reliable partner for peace? The man is a proven liar.
In light of the foregoing, how on earth can the Israeli government possibly believe that the PA means to make a lasting peace with Israel? How can Abbas be trusted as a partner for peace, whether in quotes or not, or whether it evokes “bitter laughter” or not from observers? It seems more and more likely that the bombers in the latest atrocity came from the West Bank, and if so they were very probably cranked up by his public adulation of terrorism!
Now, stay with me Harriet, because there’s more which underlines the nonsensical nature of what lies beneath your statement above:
Let’s go back to the Jerusalem bombing and more particularly to the Palestinian reaction to it.
So far as I am aware there have been no street celebrations or handing out candy as there was in Ramallah after the Fogel family were murdered, but Elder of Ziyon’s blog tells us the following, which ought to reinforce the belief that Israel actually has no partner for peace and which ought to convince even you:
Elder quotes from the Palestine Times which is a Hamas mouthpiece, but no matter:
…. Despite condemnation by the Fatah leadership, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas and his Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and described that operation as “terrorist”, there was joy in the street despite the pain experienced in the cities of the West Bank.
Upon hearing the news of a bus bombing in Jerusalem, citizens hurried to the coffee shops to follow-up on television news channels and radio stations to track the latest developments.
Abu Mohammed from Nablus, sitting in a café, said: “By God, it’s about time for such operations, which warms our hearts and the hearts of all who [suffer] from the oppression of the occupier recently.” ……
There are those who expressed their joy of such events. Samira from Ramallah: “When I saw the breaking news on one of the satellite TV news and there was an explosion on Jerusalem, the joy made my heart stop.”
A young man recalled happy memories of Tulkarm for operations similar to what happened today…
Others Palestinian citizens went into social networking sites like Facebook and forums on the World Wide Web, to express their joy and the news firsthand….” (emphases added)
So, what do we have, Harriet?
Abbas, a confirmed liar, who condemns barbarism out of one side of his mouth whilst out of the other he praises the perpetrators of such barbarism, and also the ordinary people of the West Bank, whose opinions are, we are meant to believe, representative of the majority and who feel joy and warmth in their hearts when Israeli Jews are killed and injured.
However, you may be able to redeem yourself, Harriet.
To do so you must write an intelligent, thoughtful and analytical article, based on fact and in objective reality about why you think Netanyahu is wrong to believe that Israel has no partner for peace in the West Bank, and supply us with evidence for your conclusions rather than your own half-baked opinions.
Then, who knows, you will be entitled to call yourself journalist. Though, you may subsequently be sacked from the Guardian.
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Hadar Sela
‘Elder of Ziyon’ responds to the Guardian’s Ben White on BDS.
May 1, 2012 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: BDS, Ben White, Boycott, Co-operative Group, Elder of Ziyon, Electronic Intifada, Gaza, Guardian, Israel | by Hadar Sela | 10 comments
The article published on CiF Watch yesterday concerning the Co-operative Group’s decision to upgrade its boycott policies towards Israeli firms was, of course, just one of many. Among those also tackling the subject was ‘Elder of Ziyon‘, who – along with ‘Harry’s Place‘ – then became the subject of an article on ‘electronic Intifada’ by BDS groupie and Guardian writer Ben White.
‘The Elder’ responded:
“Ben White, who is apparently a writer specializing in hating Israel, wrote an article in Electronic Intifada criticizing my post pointing out the hypocrisy of the British Co-op boycott of Agrexco, which I noted also effectively hurts the livelihood of most Palestinian Arab farmers. In his critique, White unwittingly shows exactly the hypocrisy that I am talking about.”
Read the rest here.
This is an article I wrote last year about the BDS movement’s targeting of Agrexco and the reality of cooperation between that agricultural export company and Palestinian and Arab Israeli farmers.
In 2010 the government of the Netherlands donated 6 million Euros to two projects designed to “address food security concerns, high unemployment rates as well as to maintain and develop the full economic potential of the Gaza agricultural sector”. However, the Dutch government’s partner in these projects – an NGO known as the Palestinian Agricultural Development Association (PARC) – turns out to be active in the BDS campaign. In January 2011 it issued a press release which included the following statements:
“The last attempt by Agrexco to export to Europe limited quantities of strawberries and flowers from the Gaza Strip, exploiting the illegal Israeli siege of Gaza and the inability of Palestinian farmers there to export except through Agrexco, was aimed at beautifying the image of the Israeli occupation and covering up all its ugly crimes against the Palestinian people, and especially through the ongoing Israeli siege of the steadfasting Gaza Strip.
On this occasion, PARC salutes all activists and international supporters for the BDS campaign and especially our French friends and partners who were able to frustrate the Agrexco attempt to conduct a joint press conference with a few exploited Palestinian producers.”
(Coincidentally, it just so happens that another recipient of funding from the government of the Netherlands is none other than ‘electronic Intifada’.)
As ‘Elder of Ziyon’ correctly points out:
“To see what real Palestinian Arabs want, look at their companies who attend Israeli trade shows and fairs to increase their market. Look at those who visit the ports at Ashdod and Haifa to better understand import/export procedures.”
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