JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Alarms over Durban II

By Lisa Hostein · October 7, 2008

Durban has become a dirty word in some international circles, a reminder of the 2001 U.N. anti-racism conference that devolved into an anti-Israel, anti-Jewish debacle. Now as preparations for a follow-up conference proceed, worries abound that efforts to once again villify Israel and the West are gaining the upper hand.

One U.N. watcher analyzes the latest document to emerge from the pre-conference planners.

Others, too, are sounding the alarm about the latest developments, but the World Jewish Congress is opting for a more optimistic note, hoping that the new High Commissioner for Human Rights will work to avert another failed conference.

As JTA reported back in July, it’s too early to know which groups will prevail – or even show up – in pursuing their agendas, but at least people this time around are paying attention in advance rather than getting caught unprepared like last time.

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More Mahmoud

By Uriel Heilman · September 24, 2008

Iran’s president had his big day at the United Nations yesterday, giving a speech slamming Zionists and replete with classic anti-Semitic motifs: The Zionists are murderers, deceitful and dominate global finance despite their “minuscule” number, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said.

Then he went on CNN to talk with Larry King about how the Zionists start wars, have no religion, and are “uninvited guests” (he starts talking about Israel at minute 13:40).

As with many other American media personalities who have sat down with Ahmadinejad over the years, King was outmaneuvered by Iran’s president (and his shrill translator) when it came to Israel’s right to exist and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Where King, and others, have failed to challenge Ahmadinejad is on his assertion that, if the Holocaust is true, Jews should get a state in Germany, not Palestine (for more on that, Israeli artist Ronen Eidelman has a project proposing the establishment of a Jewish state in Weimar, Germany). King should have pointed out that, as a devout Muslim, Ahmadinejad ought to know from the Bible (considered a holy book by Islam) that the Jews are indigenous to the holy land, and not a European people – to say nothing of the fact that half of Israel’s Jews are immigrants or children of immigrants from the Middle East, that Jews continually lived in Palestine/Israel since the last Jewish state there 2,000 years ago and that Israel is a democratic nation of all its citizens and not just its Jews (Israeli Arabs have the vote, too).

And when Ahmadinejad was talking about Palestinian suffering, King could have pressed him about the Arab attacks against Israelis that perpetuate the conflict – and Palestinian suffering. The point is not to get into a pissing contest about whose suffering is worse – the Israelis’ or the Palestinians’ – but to understand the context for the suffering of the Palestinian side and its root causes: the refusal of powerful Palestinians to give up their war against Israel.

JTA’s Ron Kampeas notes that CNN’s Christiane Amanpour made her own bungle of an analysis of Ahmadinejad’s speech, which she characterized as Ahmadinejad “trying to actually pull back from some of that very fiery rhetoric that he’s directed towards Israel.”

For Ahmadinejad’s interviews with NPR and the L.A. Times, read yesterday’s post.

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Al-Dura conspiracy theories

By Uriel Heilman · June 20, 2008

After ridiculing claims by Jewish right-wingers that the iconic shooting of 12-year-old Mohammed al-Dura was a hoax, the Jerusalem Post’s Larry Derfner responds to a rebuttal by Richard Landes and Philippe Karsenty with a detailed analysis of what is, and isn’t, known about the shooting.

Karsenty is the French Jewish media watchdog who was sued in a French court for claiming the al-Dura incident, which helped fuel the flames of the second intifada, was staged. Karsenty initially was found guilty of defaming the journalist who filed the report, France 2 TV’s Charles Enderlin, but last month a French appeals court overturned the verdict, supporting Karsenty’s right to charge that the incident was a hoax.

The upshot? Derfner agrees with Karsenty, the IDF and Jewish observers who say that al-Dura likely was killed by Palestinian fire, not by Israeli troops, but Derfner says there’s no evidence to show the boy’s shooting was staged:

In short, the French appeals court upheld Karsenty’s legal right to cry hoax. It by no means upheld the substance of his claim. There are light years of difference between the two.

Yet while it’s pure Jewish paranoia to claim that Enderlin and his co-conspirators knew all along that the Palestinians killed al-Dura, and it’s way beyond paranoia to think the Palestinians killed the boy deliberately or that he never died at all.

3 Comments | Share This | Anti-Zionism, Arab-Israeli Conflict, France, International, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Uncategorized

Human rights low in Geneva?

By Uriel Heilman · May 19, 2008

One of the top candidates to be the new U.N. high commissioner for human rights may bring the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva to new lows, warns one pro-Israel watchdog organization.

Mexican Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba – who is the front-runner for the post, according to Human Rights Tribune, rarely missed an opportunity to single out Israel for special opprobrium during his year as president of the Council, according to Hillel Neuer, executive director of U.N. Watch. Neuer clashed with de Alba in this session of the Human Rights Council.

This week, Neuer had this to say to JTA about de Alba, who was president of the Human Rights Council from mid-2006 to mid-2007:

“His record was one of weakness, at best, in the face of the takeover by the Islamic group of the Human Rights Council. He oversaw the massive erosion of what was already a problematic institution. Under his watch, the supposedly reformed U.N. Council ended its scrutiny of Belarus, ended its scrutiny of Cuba, and he refused to let Canada vote on its package of reforms. He also oversaw the singling out of Israel as a permanent agenda item at the Human Rights Council.”

The current high commissioner, Louise Arbour, has held the post for four years. She, too, has endured her fair share of criticism from the pro-Israel camp – residents of Sderot stoned her when she visited the town in November 2006, just a few months after she warned during the Israel-Hezbollah war that “those in positions of command and control” could be subject to “personal criminal responsibility” for their actions in the 2006 war. But if Arbour is succeeded by de Alba, the Council will only get worse, Neuer warns.

Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, who can be seen here smiling with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a meeting in Tehran in March, reportedly is another leading candidate for Arbour’s position.

The U.N. high commissioner for human rights is an appointee of the U.N. secretary-general. Spokesman Brenden Varma told JTA on Monday that Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon hopes to make his appointment by the end of June.

1 Comment | Share This | Anti-Zionism, Arab-Israeli Conflict, International, Israel, U.N.

Meanwhile, at the U.N. anti-racism prep conference in Geneva

By Michael J. Jordan · April 25, 2008

Another day, another tongue lashing from Anne Bayefsky. Bayefsky, the director of the Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust at Touro College, has become a Jewish gadfly here in Geneva, as speechifying diplomats wrapped the first week of a two-week “preparatory” session for the 2009 World Conference Against Racism. A common theme here is for Arab, Islamic and African nations to they’re racist, then point their fingers at Israel for racism. So for a fourth straight day, Bayfesky weighed in. “I wasn’t planning to say anything,” she said, after singling out Iran, Syria, Senegal and Algeria for hypocrisy. “But their words strained credulity, so I couldn’t let it go unanswered.” She’s become such an irritant for Arab anti-Israel sentiment that the Egyptian ambassador couldn’t help but express his frustration with her on Thursday. “This has become a daily show,” he said, “and we are sick and tired of it.”

While Israel boycotts the forum because of its distinctly anti-Israel vibe, one quasi-Israeli mills about – “kind of undercover,” as he puts it. Khazriel Ben Yehuda isn’t actually a citizen, but a permanent resident of Israel for 30 years. You wouldn’t guess it from his dapper African-looking garb. Ben Yehuda hails from Israel’s small Black Israelite community. “I don’t really announce I’m from Israel, like a Malian wouldn’t announce ‘I’m from Mali!,’” says Ben Yehuda, who spoke on behalf of the African Hebrew Israelite Development Agency, based in Ghana and in his Israeli hometown of Dimona. Still, he sees the forum like an Israeli would: “When you get down to it, the Arab and Islamic countries tend to dominate.”

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Prepping in Geneva for U.N. “anti-racism” conference

By Michael J. Jordan · April 24, 2008

Noel Hidalgo/Creative Commons

JTA correspondent Michael J. Jordan visits with the diplomats in Geneva preparing for the 2009 World Conference Against Racism as they seek to widen the definition of anti-Semitism to include Islamophobia – Arabs are Semites, after all – and talk of the importance of focusing on “state racism.” Guess which state?

Parsing U.N. diplo-speak

Parsing United Nations diplo-speak requires an attuned ear and a capacity to read between the lines. On Thursday in Geneva, at a preparatory conference for the 2009 World Conference Against Racism, the Syrian ambassador drew a line between “individual racism” and “state racism.” State racism? Do you mean – maybe – Israel? Crusaders against racism must study where those with a “cultural superiority complex” deny the “right of millions to self-determination,” he said. “Thank you to the distinguished delegate,” the Libyan chairwoman said.

Depends on how you define “anti-Semitism”

Just when you thought you knew all about anti-Semitism – turns out it means Arabs too, at least according to Algeria’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.

When the Algerian diplomat, Idriss Jazairy, argues that anti-Semitism’s definition should be expanded to include Arabs, who are a Semitic people, the director of the Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust at Touro College, Anne Bayefsky, shot back. The greatest source of anti-Semitism today operates “under the guise of anti-Zionism and anti-racism activities,” epitomized by the U.N. Human Rights Council’s disproportionate focus on criticizing Israel, she said.

When Bayefsky spoke, Jazairy immediately raised his hands to form a T – as in “time-out” – and the forum’s chairwoman, Libyan Najat Al-Hajjaji, began tapping her gavel, cutting off Bayefsky to permit Jazairy to respond. Bayefsky was allowed to resume, but was interrupted twice more by Al-Hajjaji’s gavel and Jazairy’s interjections.

The 57 member states of the Organization of Islamic States are “feigning an interest in anti-Semitism only to pervert and emasculate the meaning, which is why they have no problem condemning it,” Bayefsky said after the session.

Some observers were confused by the entire exchange. A watchdog for India’s “untouchables” caste, the Dalits, shyly conceded his ignorance of the matter to JTA: “It’s somebody against something, yes?”

Arafat on Display

Lining the tungsten-lit hallway in the basement of the U.N. complex in Geneva, a 10-panel exhibit on the Palestinians gets plenty of foot traffic because it’s next to the main cafeteria here. The exhibit contains four photos of Yasser Arafat, including a wide-angle shot of the standing ovation Arafat famously received from the U.N. General Assembly in November 1974. This week, a U.N. staffer and U.N. security guard – both Africans – were reading the French-language exhibit. Asked why he thought it was the only permanent exhibit in the building, the staffer replied, “Because it’s the oldest conflict.” As for Arafat, I ventured, some might view him as a terrorist. “You Europeans,” the security guard snapped at me, an American journalist. “You’re responsible for all that’s happened there.”

Click here to tune into the Durban Review Conference Preparatory Committee’s live webcast, Friday, April 25, 2008, 10:00-18:00 CEST.

2 Comments | Share This | Anti-Semitism, Anti-Zionism, Israel, U.N.

The Burg speaks: Zionism is futile

By Ben Harris · April 3, 2008

It’s been less than a year since Avraham Burg – former Knesset speaker, Jewish Agency chief, and scion of one of Israel’s most illustrious founding families – shocked his countrymen with some harsh appraisals of the Zionist enterprise (see an abridged English version of the Ha’aretz story that started the trouble here, and a more apologetic take on Burg in the Forward here). Israel’s leftist critics cheered – “Even impeccably credentialed Zionists cannot deny the truth of Israel’s evil!” – while Israelis either jeered or shook their heads in shocked confusion.

On Tuesday, Burg made his first stateside appearance since the controversy. The first thing to be said about the event is that it was long, nearly two hours long, run-down-the-batteries-on-my-MP3-recorder long. And people began drifting out well before it was over.

So nuanced and sophisticated are Burg’s critiques of the Jewish state that he cannot possibly express them in the pithy sound-bites we journalists crave. Instead, each question presented to him occasioned a background statement, a philosophical argument, a cheesy joke or two, and of course a story.

Since Burg won’t do it himself, here – briefly – are the salient points:

• Aliyah has effectively ended, thinking of Israel as a refuge for the Jewish oppressed is no longer meaningful, and Israeli society has therefore lost any sense of grand ideological purpose.
• Israel cannot find a new purpose because the quality of political intellectualizing is so low – a pathology Burg no doubt believes he stands in stark exception to – which is itself a consequence of Israel’s obsession with the Holocaust.
• The Holocaust has become a religion in Israel, traumatizing the society and making it fearful and untrusting. But fear not, for there is something more powerful than trauma – love. (For the record, I checked and that is not a lyric from a Barry Manilow song.)
• Israel should separate church and state, America-style, and move away from the Judaism of parochial concerns towards a universal, humanist Judaism. (Rabbi Sherwin Wine would have been most proud.)

If you still haven’t had enough, here’s some audio of the event.

3 Comments | Share This | Anti-Zionism, Israel, Zionism

Michael Drake in a ZOA constrictor

By Ben Harris · March 26, 2008

The much anticipated showdown with the University of California, Irvine Chancellor Michael Drake went down Monday afternoon at the Hillel summit in Washington. Hillel was criticized for inviting Drake, who presides over a campus with a history of inviting inflammatory, anti-Israel speakers, with some criticizing the chancellor for not denouncing specific acts of anti-Semitic and/or anti-Israel activity. Hillel defended the invitation as a chance to engage the chancellor and allow him to hear the concerns of the Jewish community.

Well, here’s how it played out, in three acts:

Act I, Drake responds to a question put to him by ZOA President Mort Klein.

Act II, Klein confronts Drake after the forum directly (cutting me off in the process).

[audio:/images/archive/drake1.mp3]

Act III, JTA tries again to get Drake to say how he feels about comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany. Drake’s response: the university must remain “content neutral.”

[audio:/images/archive/drake2.mp3]

[Update] Leaders of four UCI Jewish organizations issued a release praising Drake and telling “off campus organizations” (read: ZOA) they don’t know what they’re talking about.

Download (Word Document)

See also: Hillel invite to Irvine chancellor spurs debate over campus issues

5 Comments | Share This | Anti-Zionism, On Campus

You say censoring, I say defaming

By Ami Eden · October 10, 2007

Did you ever wonder what would happen if you put Tony Judt, John Mearsheimer, Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein in the same room? Find out this Friday at a conference in Chicago being put on by an outfit called the ”Depaul Academic Freedom Committee.”

The significance here is the coming together of fringe and respected left-wing critics of Israel and Jewish organizations. Pro-Israel activists can say what they want about Judt and Mearsheimer, but a few years ago few people would have lumped them with career critics of Israel/pro-Israel lobby like Chomsky and Finkelstein. Now they’re voluntarily jumping into the same boat.

Stay tuned for more details (JTA’s hoping to have a writer on the scene).

In related news from the other side of the coin ... this year’s CAMERA conference, set to take place in New York on Oct. 21 ...

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Mearsheimer-Walt: Truth in advertising?

By Ami Eden · September 25, 2007

It’s been pointed out (here, for example) that Mearsheimer & Walt are sloppy/misleading with their handling of several news articles and quotes. So, in a warped sort of way, the selective quotations in the full-page New York Times ad on Monday for their new book could be considered an example of truth in advertising

“Ruthlessly realistic” was the quote attibuted to the NYT’s William Grimes. Now here’s the full quote from Grimes’ review of the M & W book: “Slowly, deliberately and dispassionately Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt lay out the case for a ruthlessly realistic Middle East policy that would make Israel nothing more than one of many countries in the region.”

It’s clear that Grimes was not calling the book “ruthlessly realistic.” In fact, the end of his review suggests that he thinks the scholars’ overall argument is anything but:

The general tone of hostility to Israel grates on the nerves, however, along with an unignorable impression that hardheaded political realism can be subject to its own peculiar fantasies. Israel is not simply one country among many, for example, just as Britain is not. Americans feel strong ties of history, religion, culture and, yes, sentiment, that the authors recognize, but only in an airy, abstract way.

They also seem to feel that, with Israel and its lobby pushed to the side, the desert will bloom with flowers. A peace deal with Syria would surely follow, with a resultant end to hostile activity by Hezbollah and Hamas. Next would come a Palestinian state, depriving Al Qaeda of its principal recruiting tool. (The authors wave away the idea that Islamic terrorism thrives for other reasons.) Well, yes, Iran does seem to be a problem, but the authors argue that no one should be particularly bothered by an Iran with nuclear weapons. And on and on.

“It is time,” Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt write, “for the United States to treat Israel not as a special case but as a normal state, and to deal with it much as it deals with any other country.” But it’s not. And America won’t. That’s realism.

The citation from New Yorker editor David Remnick’s review was less egregious, but also a misleading half-sentence. Remnick in the ad: “The strategic questions they raise now, particularly about Israel’s privileged relationship with the United States, are worth debating.” Here’s the full line: “The strategic questions they raise now, particularly about Israel’s privileged relationship with the United States, are worth debating – just as it is worth debating whether it is a good idea to be selling arms to Saudi Arabia. But their announced objectives have been badly undermined by the contours of their argument – a prosecutor’s brief that depicts Israel as a singularly pernicious force in world affairs.”

This was criticism, not praise – Remnick was arguing that the scholars’ questions might be good ones, but their answers are way off.

Here is Remnick’s concluding graff:

Taming the influence of lobbies, if that is what Mearsheimer and Walt desire, is a matter of reforming the lobbying and campaign-finance laws. But that is clearly not the source of the hysteria surrounding their arguments. “The Israel Lobby” is a phenomenon of its moment. The duplicitous and manipulative arguments for invading Iraq put forward by the Bush Administration, the general inability of the press to upend those duplicities, the triumphalist illusions, the miserable performance of the military strategists, the arrogance of the Pentagon, the stifling of dissent within the military and the government, the moral disaster of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, the rise of an intractable civil war, and now an incapacity to deal with the singular winner of the war, Iran—all of this has left Americans furious and demanding explanations. Mearsheimer and Walt provide one: the Israel lobby. In this respect, their account is not so much a diagnosis of our polarized era as a symptom of it.

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