Organizers of the flotilla that is set to sail for the Gaza Strip later this month expressed disappointment over the weekend that the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) will not take an active role in the convoy.
The IHH announced on Friday that the Mavi Marmara ship, on which nine Turkish activists were killed last May when it was intercepted by Israeli commandos on its way to Gaza, will not take part in the upcoming convoy.
Dr. Alan Bauer, an American- Israeli victim of a Palestinian terrorist attack, on Thursday filed a first of its kind lawsuit in an effort to seize ships to be used by Islamic and anti-Israel organizations to try to breach the blockade of the Gaza Strip later this month.
The suit, Bauer v. The Mavi Marmara, was filed in Manhattan federal court, seeking to confiscate 14 ships, which are scheduled to participate in the upcoming flotilla and which were outfitted with funds Bauer says were unlawfully raised in the United States by anti-Israel groups, including The Free Gaza Movement. Over the weekend, however, the Turkish IHH organization said the Mavi Marmara was still too damaged to sail for Gaza.
The plaintiff, a biologist from the Chicago area, and his son Jonathan, then aged seven, were seriously wounded when Palestinian suicide bomber detonated a bomb, packed with metal spikes and nails, in the center of a crowd of shoppers on King George Street in Jerusalem on March 21, 2002.
Three people were killed and 85 other people were also wounded.
Bauer alleges that The Free Gaza Movement and other American-based anti-Israel organizations have raised funds in the United States to outfit the Gaza flotilla ships. The lawsuit contends that furnishing and outfitting the ships, which are being used for hostilities against a US ally, violates American law.
The plaintiff rests his claim upon the rarely used 18th-century “informant” statute (18 USC Section 962) that allows a plaintiff (called an “informer”) to privately seize ships outfitted in the United States for use against a US ally.
The stature states: “Whoever, within the United States, furnishes, fits out, arms, or attempts to furnish, fit out or arm, any vessel, with intent that such vessel shall be employed in the service of any foreign prince, or state, or of any colony, district, or people, to cruise, or commit hostilities against the subjects, citizens, or property of any foreign prince or state, or of any colony, district, or people with whom the United States is at peace; or Whoever issues or delivers a commission within the United State for any vessel, to the intent that she may be so employed – Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
“Every such vessel, her tackle, apparel, and furniture, together with all materials, arms, ammunition, and stores which may have been procured for the building and equipment thereof, shall be forfeited, one half to the use of the informer and the other half to the use of the United States.”
Honestly, though, arrest him if there's evidence of aiding and abetting terrorism. But don't just smear the guy using the CIA. Sounds like something from the Nixon years.
WASHINGTON — A former senior C.I.A. official says that officials in the Bush White House sought damaging personal information on a prominent American critic of the Iraq war in order to discredit him.
Glenn L. Carle, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush, said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information on Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor who writes an influential blog that criticized the war.
In an interview, Mr. Carle said his supervisor at the National Intelligence Council told him in 2005 that White House officials wanted “to get” Professor Cole, and made clear that he wanted Mr. Carle to collect information about him, an effort Mr. Carle rebuffed. Months later, Mr. Carle said, he confronted a C.I.A. official after learning of another attempt to collect information about Professor Cole. Mr. Carle said he contended at the time that such actions would have been unlawful.
It is not clear whether the White House received any damaging material about Professor Cole or whether the C.I.A. or other intelligence agencies ever provided any information or spied on him. Mr. Carle said that a memorandum written by his supervisor included derogatory details about Professor Cole, but that it may have been deleted before reaching the White House. Mr. Carle also said he did not know the origins of that information or who at the White House had requested it.
Intelligence officials disputed Mr. Carle’s account, saying that White House officials did ask about Professor Cole in 2006, but only to find out why he had been invited to C.I.A.-sponsored conferences on the Middle East. The officials said that the White House did not ask for sensitive personal information, and that the agency did not provide it.
“We’ve thoroughly researched our records, and any allegation that the C.I.A. provided private or derogatory information on Professor Cole to anyone is simply wrong,” said George Little, an agency spokesman.
Nope, not going that far. Patriot Act does not authorize CIA spying domestically. It simply allows coordination of intelligence gathering activities. Longstanding bureaucratic norms would still drive domestic surveillance operations, and frankly, the legacy of the 1960s and 1970s still contributes to a culture of legal safeguards that obviously make cases of spying --- like that alleged against Professor Juan Cole --- beyond the pale. Bust him if he's a treasonous dirtbag. Otherwise, let him spew his bilious hatred. No doubt he's earned some enemies on that basis alone.
CHICAGO — FBI agents took box after box of address books, family calendars, artwork and personal letters in their 10-hour raid in September of the century-old house shared by Stephanie Weiner and her husband.
The agents seemed keenly interested in Weiner’s home-based business, the Revolutionary Lemonade Stand, which sells silkscreened baby outfits and other clothes with socialist slogans, phrases like “Help Wanted: Revolutionaries.”
The search was part of a mysterious, ongoing nationwide terrorism investigation with an unusual target: prominent peace activists and politically active labor organizers.
The probe — involving subpoenas to 23 people and raids of seven homes last fall — has triggered a high-powered protest against the Department of Justice and, in the process, could create some political discomfort for President Obama with his union supporters as he gears up for his reelection campaign.
More at that link above.
At the video, former FBI agent Brian Weidner suggests any funding U.S. "peace" groups provide to "humanitarian" organizations could be funneled to terrorism.
All along, the activists have claimed they have no ties to terrorism, despite the appearance that the investigation is into possible ties to the communist Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), “a revolutionary socialist and Marxist-Leninist organization in the United States” that is seeking to end America’s free-enterprise system.
The Freedom Road Socialist Organization has links (literally) to both the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [background here] and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) [background here], two groups on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.
Another of those being investigated is Hatem Abudayyeh who, according to his bio, is the Executive Director of the Arab American Action Network (AAAN), Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Coalition of African, Arab, Asian, European, and Latino Immigrants of Illinois (CAAAELII), is a founding Advisory Board member of the National Network for Arab American Communities (NNAAC), and sits on the National Coordinating Committee of the United States Palestine Community Network (USPCN).
Now, with possible indictments looming, some of the individuals being investigated are attempting to strike back.
Several activists and their lawyers said they believe indictments could come anytime, so they have turned their organizing skills toward a counteroffensive, decrying the inquiry as a threat to their First Amendment rights. All 23 of the activists invoked their right not to testify before a grand jury, defying U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, whose office is spearheading the investigation. A spokesman for Fitzgerald declined to comment.
The activists have formed the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, organized phone banks to flood Attorney General Eric Holder’s office and the White House with protest calls, solicited letters from unions and faith-based groups and sent delegations to Capitol Hill.
“I am so disgusted when I see that so many union people have been targeted in this,” said Phyllis Walker, president of AFSCME Local 3800, which represents clerical workers at the University of Minnesota, including four members who are possible targets.
On May 17th, according to the Committee to Stop FBI Repression’s website, another activist’s home was raided in Los Angeles and the activist, Carlos Montes, was detained and questioned about the Midwest activists, as well as the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.
On June 16th, the Committee is planning a “Day of Action in Solidarity with Carlos Montes.”
On the actvists’ website, there is a timeline of events that includes actions the activists have taken to counter the investigation into their activities, as well as the list of Democrat politicians the group has enlisted to support them.
By the looks of it, with indictments possibly being issued soon, there will likely be much more coming out in the coming weeks and months ahead.
Check Red State for all the links to the activist organizations. There's a protest scheduled today in Alhambra. Kinda early though, so I don't know if I'll make it.
Over the past several weeks the Pakistani military has been distancing itself from American intelligence and counterterrorism operations against militant groups in Pakistan. This has angered many in Washington who believe that Bin Laden’s death has shaken Al Qaeda and that there is now an opportunity to further weaken the terrorist organization with more raids and armed drone strikes.
But in recent months, dating approximately to when a C.I.A. contractor killed two Pakistanis on a street in the eastern city of Lahore in January, American officials said that Pakistani spies from the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, known as the ISI, have been generally unwilling to carry out surveillance operations for the C.I.A. The Pakistanis have also resisted granting visas allowing American intelligence officers to operate in Pakistan, and have threatened to put greater restrictions on the drone flights.
It was just over a year ago that Israeli forces went aboard the Mavi Marmara and six other ships that had set sail from Turkey. The vessels were filled with anti-Israel activists and aimed to deliver supplies to Gaza in defiance of Israel's arms blockade of the Hamas-controlled territory. Those aboard the ships were hoping to provoke an Israeli response and, unfortunately, they succeeded. While most of the ships were boarded peacefully, Israeli troops -armed only with light weapons, as they expected no resistance -were attacked when they boarded the Mavi Marmara. The situation escalated rapidly and, having failed to use the appropriate degree of force at the outset, Israeli troops had to use too much at the end. Nine activists were killed and Israel and its blockade were roundly criticized.
A year later, Canadian anti-Israel activists are hoping lightning strikes twice and are planning to sail a vessel from our shores to the Gaza Strip, despite the continuing Israeli military embargo. By forcing a confrontation with the Israelis, they hope to bring yet more international scorn down upon the Jewish state. They have a long list of supporters, including the usual suspects -but also one name that is a bit surprising: Alex Atamanenko, the freshly re-elected NDP MP for B.C. Southern Interior.
Mr. Atamanenko, first elected in 2006, has been quite public with his support of the Gazan cause before. He was quick to condemn Israel for the original flotilla incident. He also criticized its military operations against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip in 2008 and 2009. His endorsement of the Canadian Boat to Gaza is therefore logically consistent, if nothing else.
More at that link above. The NDP is the New Democratic Party, a national socialist party that is currently the official opposition party in the Canadian House of Commnons.
NAIROBI, Kenya — The al-Qaida mastermind behind the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania was killed this week at a security checkpoint in Mogadishu by Somali forces who didn't immediately realize he was the most wanted man in East Africa, officials said Saturday.
The death of Fazul Abdullah Mohammed — a man who topped the FBI's most wanted list for nearly 13 years — is the third major strike in six weeks against the worldwide terror group that was headed by Osama bin Laden until his death last month.
Mohammed had a $5 million bounty on his head for allegedly planning the Aug. 7, 1998, embassy bombings. The blasts killed 224 people in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Most of the dead were Kenyans. Twelve Americans also died.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton — who was on a visit to Tanzania on Saturday as Somali officials confirmed Mohammed's death — called the killing a "significant blow to al-Qaida, its extremist allies, and its operations in East Africa.
"It is a just end for a terrorist who brought so much death and pain to so many innocents in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and elsewhere — Tanzanians, Kenyans, Somalis, and our own embassy personnel," Clinton said.
More at that link above, although I think the same lessons apply now that applied after the Abbottabad raid: Targeted killings don't kill the Al Qaeda organization. Depending on whom you talk to, global jihad constitutes an amorphous, multi-faceted terror network, with many alliances of convenience and substantial ties to state actors, such as Pakistan. There's lots of work to do in that sense. See, for example, Jayshree Bajoria, "Pakistan's New Generation of Terrorists."
JERUSALEM — Israeli forces fired at pro-Palestinian protesters on the Syrian frontier on Sunday as they tried to breach the border for the second time in three weeks, reflecting a new mode of popular struggle and deadly confrontation fueled by turmoil in the Arab world and the vacuum of stalled peace talks.
Wave after wave of protesters, mainly Palestinians from refugee camps in Syria, approached the frontier with the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Israeli soldiers opened fire on those who crossed a new trench and tried to attack the border fence near the towns of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights and Quneitra in Syria.
By nightfall, the Syrian news agency SANA reported that 22 protesters had been killed and more than 350 had been wounded. Israeli officials said that they had no information on casualties but suggested that the Syrian figures were exaggerated.
Even so, it was the worst bloodshed in the Golan Heights since Israel and Syria fought a war there in 1973.
Gotta love those silly "COEXIST" bumper stickers, which include Islam in among the other religions, despite the fact that Islam's mission (per the Quran and Hadith) is not "coexistence" but the conversion or death of all who do not believe as they do.
JERUSALEM — Israel on Saturday was bracing for possible clashes along its borders after Palestinian activists in the region called for protest marches on Sunday, three weeks after a similar wave of coordinated protests led to deadly clashes with Israeli troops.
Protests on Sunday to mark the anniversary of the Palestinian “naksa,” or setback, in the June 1967 Middle East war were being planned in the West Bank and Gaza, territories that were conquered by Israel then. There have also been calls on social networking Internet sites for Palestinians in Lebanon and Syria to march at the Israeli border.
That echoed the conditions that led to the violence on May 15, the day Palestinians mark as the “nakba,” or catastrophe, of Israel’s establishment in 1948. Taking a cue from the so-called Arab Spring movement, organizers in multiple countries and territories called for a coordinated action against Israel, and huge crowds of Palestinians responded.
They clashed with Israeli troops on four fronts, and breached the border between Syria and the Golan Heights for the first time in more than 30 years. At least 14 protesters from Lebanon and Syria were killed, stoking outrage in Palestinian camps across the region and intensifying pressure on Israel to create the conditions for a return to peace talks.
The Israeli military was not giving out details of its preparations, but television reports showed soldiers repairing fences and bulldozers digging trenches along the borders in the north. On Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had instructed Israeli forces to act with restraint, but also with determination, to protect Israel’s sovereignty and borders. According to reports from Lebanon, activists there canceled plans to march to the Israeli border after the Lebanese authorities declared the border area a closed military zone.
June is shaping up to be one big dress rehearsal for the tsunami in September. On Sunday, Palestinians will mark the anniversary of the 1967 Six-Day War with processions and demonstrations in the territories and along Israel's borders. Toward the end of the month, a new flotilla to Gaza is planned, with the declared aim of breaching the blockade - which in practice has long since been lifted. In the meantime, the Palestinians will continue pressing their initiative for a unilateral declaration of a state come September.
From the Golan Heights to the West Bank, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman's suggestion to the Palestinians will continue to resonate: to march en masse to Jerusalem. The idea is to create a popular, nonviolent demonstration along the lines of Tahrir Square, which would leave Israel unable to mount an effective response.
More details, and then:
Without ignoring the plans for Naksa Day, the country's leaders are now primarily concerned with blocking the Gaza flotilla, which is scheduled to depart on June 20. Currently, the plan is to have 15 boats carry about 1,500 Islamic and European left-wing activists who are seeking a bloody clash with the IDF. So far, only four boats have been recruited. Gantz promised the MKs that the IDF would block all attempts to breach the maritime blockade of Gaza, and added the self-evident: that the flotilla is a provocation, not an actual attempt to assist Gaza's residents.
Maj. Gen. (res. ) Giora Eiland, who headed the internal IDF inquiry into last year's flotilla episode, offered an interesting hypothetical proposition this week. If it were possible to get the Turkish government (as opposed to the organizers, who are from the extremist Islamic organization IHH ) to promise to examine the boats in advance, and ensure that they are not carrying weapons, he said, then Israel should consider letting the vessels into Gaza.
That is why I have spoken, why I speak and why I shall continue to speak. The statements for which I am being tried are statements which I made in my function as a politician participating in the public debate in our society. My statements were not aimed at individuals, but at Islam and the process of islamization. That is why the Public Prosecutor has concluded that I should be acquitted.
On May 11, 2011, I spoke to a student audience at UCLA for about an hour. My speech was video-taped and recorded on audio. Frontpage Magazine posted the video and an edited transcript of the speech. We are now posting an unedited transcript (accessible here) for reasons I will make clear in a moment.
On May 24, the Undergraduate Students Association at UCLA, by a 10-0 vote passed a resolution proposed by the Muslim Students Association declaring that “UCLA is a UC Campus Against Islamophobia.” I don’t mean to suggest that my appearance was the sole trigger of this resolution but it didn’t surprise me to find that among the numerous “Whereas” clauses in which the reasons for the resolution are stated, I am the only individual mentioned, or that it just came two weeks after the “controversy” surrounding my appearance which was really not so much a controversy as a series of one-sided assaults on myself and the College Republicans who invited me. “Islamophobes! Racists!” Call it an opportunity that I presented for the MSA and its supporters to extract concessions from the broader student population and to attempt to reach into their pockets in the process. Since student governments are proving grounds for future politicians, it is also a moment for the rest of us to reflect on what is in store for the country if these university elites can repeat their gains in the world beyond the campus.
Here is how the Muslim Students Association formulated the concept “Islamophobia:”
Islamophobia is defined as ideologies, beliefs, and actions that perpetuate inaccurate and xenophobic views toward the culture and practice of Islam and the personification of its followers, such as being seen as monolithic, seen as a separate and ‘other’ culture that does not share common values, seen as inferior to the West, seen as violent, aggressive, and supportive of terrorism, seen as sexist and oppressive of women, seen as a political ideology used for political advantage, anti Muslim hostility, and exclusionary or discriminatory practices against Muslims from mainstream society;
Please note, “Islamophobia” is manifest in statements about Islam that are “innaccurate” (and by whose standard you might ask); by statements that reflect the view that Islam “does not share common values” (as for example, a belief in the separation of church and state?); by attitudes that regard Islam as “inferorior to the West” “as sexist and oppressive of women” (in other words no more noticing that in sharia-governed countries women are consigned to a second class status that renders them the virtual chattel of males); nor can one entertain the opinion that Islam is a political ideology (as it indubitably is in Iran, Saudia Arabia, Lebanon and Gaza, just to name a few zones where the lines between politics and religion are invisible). In other words no noticing that the “Party of God” (Hezbollah) or the Muslim Brotherhood which is now the most powerful political party in Egypt are actually political. Nor can you link the Islamic beliefs, codified by a warrior named Mohammed who urged his followers to slay infidels and cut off their heads with terrorists who invoke those beliefs when slaying infidels by cutting off their heads.
My recent speech at UCLA is adduced as evidence of the Islamophobia directed against Muslims in this clause:
Whereas, On Wednesday May 11th controversial speaker David Horowitz made false allegations on campus against the Muslim Students Association and the Afrikan Student Union, and further instilled hate against Muslims by stating that “Islam is a sick, sick culture” (5)(6);
Two footnotes are attached to this clause as if there were some actual connection to facts of my appearance at UCLA on May 11. One of the footnotes links to a column by a UCLA Muslim, Asra Ziauddin, which seizes on the “Wall of Lies” that I had written and that College Republicans had erected to counter the slanders of Palestinian Awareness Week at UCLA. Palestine Awareness Week claimed among many similar blatant falsehoods designed to demonize Jews and the Jewish homeland, that Israel is an “apartheid state.” Our response: Israel is not only not an apartheid state, it is the only real democracy in the Middle East. To this Ziauddin countered — “Myth: Israel it is the only democracy in the Middle East. Fact: This democracy only works for Jewish citizens.”
Actual Fact: Israel’s democracy works for 1.4 million Arabs who are Israeli citizens as well. To prove his fallacious point Ziauddin writes: “Six million Palestinian refugees have not been granted the right of return.” I don’t for a moment believe that Ziauddin’s invented figure “six million” is a coincidence, but there is no such right of return except in the minds of Palestinian revanchists.
This is another one of those resources where you'll want to sit back with a cup of coffee. There's both articles and video reports. The Globe's Patrick Martin really did get inside Hamas. Militarized squalor. Amazing reporting.
Martin is sympathetic but un-appeasing. I keep thinking what it would be like to have essentially a terrorist state in your backyard, recruiting and training a whole generation of young Palestinians that want to kill my family. Partners for peace? Well, folks know where I stand on that?
While the president and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were debating the shape of a future two-state solution, the Egyptian government was exercising its own options in the region.
Tomorrow Egypt will open its only crossing into Hamas-controlled Gaza — a crossing that under the “cold peace” it has observed with Israel had remained closed since the Hamas take-over four years ago.
Of course, Gazans had improvised over those years, making their way into Egypt and back home again by way of a series of illegal tunnels — but not so illegal that Hamas didn’t attempt to collect taxes on goods coming into Gaza at their checkpoints...
Israel’s very real fear is over the possible flow of weapons and/or militants into Gaza, putting residents of southern Israel in further danger of ever more powerful rockets coming over the border from Gaza — not a pretty side of the Arab Spring.
A really important piece at the new Commentary, from Noah Pollak, "The B'Tselem Witch Trials." Grab a cup of coffee. In fact, you might want to print this one for reference. I'd have to post extremely long excerpts not to do damage to the argument, but two parts stuck out for me in particular. One is the discussion of Anat Biletzsky, a Professor of Philosophy at Tel Aviv University and Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. Here's a passage, and this is even segmented:
Biletzky’s activism reached its apogee in 2004, when she helped write what is known as the “Olga Document,” a rambling tract named for the location in Israel where it was written. Israel, the letter says, is a “death trap” and “the biggest ghetto in the entire history of the Jews”; “military operations and wars has [sic] become the life-support drug of Israel’s Jews.” It goes on to state that “we are living in a benighted colonial reality—in the heart of darkness”; and that Israel seems “determined to pulverize the Palestinian people to dust” by subjecting them to “the nightmare of apartheid, the burden of humiliation and the demons of destruction employed by Israel unremittingly, day and night, for 37 years.” Out of “racist arrogance,” the document claims, Israelis across the political spectrum “depict the Palestinians as subhuman.”
The Olga Document continues: “We are united in a critique of Zionism, based as it is on refusal to acknowledge the indigenous people of this country and on denial of their rights, on dispossession of their lands, and on adoption of separation as a fundamental principle and way of life.” Besides adopting the self-evidently racist claim that only Arabs are “indigenous” to the land of Israel, Biletzky also called for the repeal of all laws and the end of all practices that make Israel a Jewish state. This, she said, along with creating an Arab majority in Israel through the Palestinian “right of return,” would finally absolve Jews of the moral stain that is Israel.
Biletzky has also acknowledged that she has been working to end Israel as a Jewish state since the late 1960s. She stated that “Israel [today] is like the Nazis or like Germany in ’34” and that life for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza “is something that I do not hesitate to call a concentration camp.”
Biletzky is not merely an apologist for terrorism. At times, she has given terrorists moral support, as she did in the case of Azmi Bishara. He was a member of the Knesset from the Balad Party, an anti-Zionist Arab faction. In 2006, Bishara fled Israel after coming under investigation for espionage and high treason. When the gag order on the case was lifted in May 2007, it was revealed that Bishara had acted as a paid informant for Hezbollah during the Second Lebanon War, apparently helping the group select targets in Israel for missile attacks. It was also discovered that he had stolen millions of shekels from Arab charities. Biletzky responded to these devastating revelations by publishing a statement of solidarity in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that read, in its entirety, “Azmi Bishara—we are brethren.”
Throughout her history of apologetics for violence and terrorism against Israel’s Jews, as well as her advocacy for the dismantling of the Jewish state, Biletzky has always been called a human-rights activist. For reasons that may be disturbing to contemplate, the journalists who eagerly report her organization’s accusations against Israel have never taken her biases into consideration when assessing the veracity of B’Tselem’s accusations. Most telling of all, perhaps, at no point did members of B’Tselem itself—its board, its employees, or its army of supporters—protest the extremism in its own ranks.
Also, Pollak's conclusion answers some questions relating to the development of the international campaign of delegitimation against Israel:
The story of those Israeli Jews who have made careers out of attacking Israel’s right to exist, such as Biletzky and [Oren] Yiftachel, illustrates the degradation of the once mighty Israeli peace movement. Originally, the movement sought legitimacy and prominence in Israeli politics, and received it for a time—and because it was part of the political process, it was constrained by the need for electoral support and popular legitimacy. Yet the collapse of the Oslo Accords in 2000 and the Palestinian terror war that followed presented the peace movement with an existential crisis: With whom, exactly, were Israelis supposed to make peace? The withdrawals from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza five years later, and the entrenchment in the vacated territory of Iranian-backed terrorist groups, further disillusioned Israelis and called into question the central proposition of the peace movement: if Israel makes the right concessions, peace will follow. And so, over the past 15 years, the peace movement has fallen from a position of influence in Israeli politics to one, today, of irrelevance, an anachronism that no longer has realistic answers to Israel’s problems.
What remains of the peace movement is a white-hot core of activists who refuse to acknowledge their failure and yet cannot gracefully recede from the political stage. They have discovered an innovative formula for rebuilding their political relevance completely outside the democratic political arena: reconstitute themselves as NGOs and conceal their political agenda in the apolitical rhetoric of human rights and international law. In this guise, the peace movement no longer has any need to win elections or offer a serious platform for governance. The NGOs instead position themselves as a blunt opposition force working against mainstream Israeli society, which is viewed as unsophisticated, provincial, racist, and stricken with “security hysteria.” This “human-rights community” has thus not only opposed every consensus Israeli security measure—Operation Defensive Shield during the intifada, the security fence to stop suicide bombers, the targeted killings of terror-group leaders, the Lebanon War, and the Gaza War—but has branded them war crimes and human-rights violations for which Israel should be punished.
In these circumstances, where there is no point in trying to succeed at the ballot box, leftist Israeli activism now directs itself internationally in the hopes that fomenting a narrative of Israeli criminality will invite enough sanction and condemnation from Europe, the United Nations, and America to force Israel to accede to the demands of these otherwise powerless radicals.
The policies they support would constitute nothing less than Zionism’s destruction. And they apparently have no compunction about seeking its destruction from without, since they have learned to their disappointment and rage that Israel is too strong a nation to allow itself to be destroyed from within.
The full article is here. At top is a recent B'Tselem video. The destruction of Israel. Once again, that's what all of this is about.
