Israeli Flag Burned at Hungarian Retirement Protest

Cloth with Star of David lit on fire as thousands of public service employees demonstrated against a gov't plan to abolish early retirement.

The flag of Israel was burned as thousands of Hungarian public service employees protested against a government plan to abolish early retirement on Friday, AFP reported.

According to Hungarian public television M1, a white cloth with the Star of David, resembling the Israeli flag, was lit o

Ira Chernus' Agenda

In Salon and the Huffington Post, Ira Chernus pooh-poohs Israel's security concerns.

Chernus lists three "myths" about Israel's security. I will only discuss the first one. It should be enough to show that Chernus is not being intellectually honest, to say the least.

Myth Number 1: Israel’s existence is threatened by the ever-present possibility of military attack.

This is a straw man argument. I'm not aware of anyone who says that Israel's existence is threatened by any conventional military attack.

Israel's security posture is not aimed primarily at defending the existence of Israel. Rather, Israel's army is an almost unique position where it must defend its citizens from the threat of being wantonly attacked.

The US Army has no such worries. NATO members have no such worries. For them, all wars are far away and only soldiers are at risk. Israel is perhaps the only Western country in the world where every single citizen is under the credible threat of an attack in any given week.


This simple fact, which Chernus ignores altogether, is the security issue that Israel faces. Chernus, for all his supposed analytical ability, does not even mention Hezbollah once in his article. It is as if the 2006 Lebanon war - where the hundreds of thousands of citizens in the northern part of the country were forced to become temporary refugees - never happened. Chernus downplays Hamas rockets and ignores the 40,000 more deadly and accurate rockets that are aimed, today, at Israel's population centers. And, as in 2006, it takes only one border incident to escalate into a full scale war.

Would such a war threaten Israel's existence? No. But such a war is still not acceptable. Concern about such a war is still a primary security issue. And those who cannot even acknowledge that this type of war is a possibility less than five years after the last one is either willfully blind or adhering to an agenda.

Chernus also downplays the possibility of a nuclear threat against Israel, with this almost unbelievable sentence:

While the Israeli government constantly sounds alarms about imagined Iranian nuclear weapons -- though its intelligence services now suggest Iran won’t have even one before 2015 at the earliest -- Israel remains the region’s only nuclear power for the foreseeable future.

Is Chernus really suggesting that a nuclear threat that is perhaps four years away is not a significant security concern? How can one take anyone who writes such a sentence seriously?

Moreover, only in 2007 did the world discover that Syria has a secret nuclear weapons program as well. Is Chernus so naive as to think that this is not a threat to Israel either? (Or does he believe that Syria just gave up, and is now a peaceful neighbor that can be trusted?)

In short, Chernus uses multiple false arguments to imply that Israel has no real security concerns.

So why is he purposefully mis-characterizing Israel's security posture?

The answer can be seen in how he sums up his article:

But what if the American public knew the facts...? What if every solemn reference to Israel’s “security needs” were greeted not with nodding heads, but with the eye-rolling skepticism it deserves? What if Israel’s endless excesses and excuses -- its claims that the occupation of the West Bank and the economic strangulation of Gaza are necessary “for the sake of security” -- were regularly scoffed at by most Americans?

It’s hard to imagine the Obama administration, or any American administration, keeping up a pro-Israel tilt in the face of such public scorn.

Chernus has an agenda - to turn the US against Israel.

That agenda is what drives his knowingly deceptive analysis. That agenda is what makes him downplay Iran's nuclear program and political program to surround Israel with Iranian satellites. That agenda is what makes him ignore Hezbollah's rockets and Syria's nuclear ambitions altogether.

And any analysis of Israel's security needs that is based on such an agenda is not worth the disk space it takes up.

Insane Anti-Israel Quote of the Day

Insane anti-Israel quote of the day

Posted: 11 Apr 2011 10:50 AM PDT
From our old pal Ken O'Keefe, who is so crazy that even the Free Gaza movement has distanced themselves from him, talking about an Israeli attack on a suspected weapons factory in March:

What is taking place in Gaza is as bad as anything in history.

NYU Versus Israel

Today at NYU, the righteous vs the wrongeous

Left wing tools protest the only humane society in the Middle East -- victim of sweeping Islamic anti-semitism (below).

Interesting to note, The Students for Justice for Palestine had an NYU officer on their side, none on the side of the pro-freedom, pro-Israel side. There were also a number of adults (faculty?) on the SJP protest and the pro-israel counter protest were all students.

Nyu3

Will the Next Secretary of State Bomb Israel?

Samantha Power, advocate of US invasion into Israel, wife of free speech opponent Cass Sunstein, emerges from the West Wing of the White House. This is a very powerful image.

Ah, the mask comes off, and out comes Obama's army of little nazis. I cannot believe the people who have access to the highest office of power in the world. Speculation is hot that Samantha Power will be the next Secretary of State.

A flattering New York Times profile has increased speculation that Samantha Power, the Dublin-born aide to President Obama, could be his next Secretary of State or National Security Adviser.

I worry so for free people.

Obama never seemed fazed by her calling in a 2002 interview with Harry Kreisler of the Institute for International Studies at Berkeley for military action against Israel to secure the creation of a Palestinian state. Power said that establishing a Palestinian state would mean “sacrificing – or investing, I think, more than sacrificing – billions of dollars, not in servicing Israel’s military, but actually investing in the new state of Palestine, in investing the billions of dollars it would probably take, also, to support what will have to be a mammoth protection force, not of the old Rwanda Book kind, but a meaningful military presence.” She said that this would “require external intervention.”

Pam Geller

Norwegian Lunatic Left Party Calls on World to Bomb Israel

The SV annual convention goes to vote. The deranged junior partner in the current government coalition will among other proposals vote on a motion to use armed force against Israel should it attack Gaza.
The motion is the blood money required to pay off SV card carrying members who find it hard to accept that they have taken the nation to war, again. Last time it did so was back in 1999, when the party backed the NATO bombing of Serbia. As a result, we got ourselves involved in a war crimes probe because of high number of civilian casualties and bombing illegal targets.
Therefore, the only way it can be palatable to bomb Libya for these morally deranged people is if Israel can be bombed too.
Here is the less than lucid reasoning behind the motion:

- The credibility of the world community in its confrontation with the Gadafi regime is undermined when there is no reaction against other states in the region who commit injustices against civil population. The greater world community must therefore also react against Israeli air attacks on the Gaza strip.



Wow, a declaration of war from the governments very junior partner! And not to mention that thus Israel has become the only country in the world who will be denied the right to defend itself in the face of constant terrorism, rocket attacks against its own population. With a stroke of the pen, the entire body of international Law must be changed to accommodate for this perverse view, and taken to its logical conclusion, Norway would be unable to defend itself from attacks. Or maybe, we ought to bomb ourselves for bombing the Libyans?
But at least now we don’t have to deal with the lies and hypocrisy of this lunatic fringe group, at least they have come clean and admit that they hate the guts of every living Jew to the extent that they would gladly help to blow the country to pieces.
Roll over Ahmadinejad, even your antics look comical in comparison.
I wonder if this kind of extreme agitation and war mongering is even legal?
Please somebody, come and help us, we are in the hands of very evil people.
Prof. M. McGonagall

The good news is that the comments to an Aftenblodet article about this shows universal derision for the SV party.

Still, I've seen some people mention that the coalition decision to bomb Libya would lead to absurd ideas like this, and it appears that they are right.These so-called pacifists turn into warmongers when it comes to the idea of Jews defending themselves.

(See also here for the latest in Norwegian anti-Zionism and anti-semitism.)

Why the Jews? Advances in Anti-Semitism

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Alan Dershowitz explains why drunken rants against Jews by public figures seem so popular these days.

There is a second, a far more troubling answer to "Why the Jews?" Prominent public figures have blurred another line as well—the line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, between attacking the Jewish state and attacking the Jewish people. Consider widely publicized remarks made by Bishop Desmond Tutu, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and the American Model of Freedom, and a man openly admired and praised by President Obama. He has called the Jews "a peculiar people" and has accused "the Jews" of causing many of the world's problems. He has railed against "the Jewish Lobby," comparing its power to that of Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin.

He has said that "the Jews thought they had a monopoly of God: Jesus was angry that they could shut out other human beings." He has said that Jews have been "fighting against" and being "opposed to" his God. He has "compared the features of the ancient Holy Temple in Jerusalem to the features of the apartheid system in South Africa." He has complained that "the Jewish people with their traditions, religion and long history of persecution sometimes appear to have caused a refugee problem among others." Tutu has minimized the suffering of those murdered in the Holocaust by asserting that "the gas chambers" made for "a neater death" than did Apartheid. He has complained of "the Jewish Monopoly of the Holocaust," and has demanded that its victims must "forgive the Nazis for the Holocaust," while refusing to forgive the "Jewish people" for "persecute[ing] others."

He has complained that Americans "are scared…to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful—very powerful." He has accused Jews—not Israelis—of exhibiting "an arrogance—the arrogance of power because Jews are a powerful lobby in this land and all kinds of people woo their support."

Tutu has acknowledged having been frequently accused of being anti-Semitic," to which he has offered two responses: "Tough luck;" and "my dentist's name is Dr. Cohen."

Former President Jimmy Carter too has contributed to this new legitimization of Jew-bashing, by echoing Tutu's derisive talk about the Jewish domination of America ("powerful political, economic and religious forces…that dominate our media") and his use of the term "Apartheid" in his book about Israel.

By thus blurring the line between legitimate political criticism and illegitimate bigotry, widely admired people like Tutu and Carter tend to legitimate the kind of anti-Semitic attitudes that manifest themselves in the rants of celebrities like Galliano, Sheen, Gibson and others.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: Alan Dershowitz, anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, Desomnd Tutu, Jimmy Carter

posted by Carl in Jerusalem

The Economist Predicts ME War [again]

Elliot Jager rips The Economist for their recent cover story warning of the possibility of war in the Middle East.

Economist editorials and feature articles are published anonymously—though the newspaper's Israel correspondent, former Haaretz editor David Landau, would likely have contributed to the latest barrage. Landau is on record as asserting that Israel is begging for "more vigorous U.S. intervention" and in fact "wants to be raped" by Washington. In the Economist report, an unappreciative Israel is now pocketing billions in American aid even as it rebuffs pleas to "pause in its building of illegal Jewish settlements." The reasons for this supposed obstinacy are Israel's "thriving economy" and "America's pro-Israel lobby"—hence the need for muscular and determined action by the White House.

One despairs of rehearsing the fatal flaws with this argument, to the extent that it is an argument at all rather than an unsubstantiated rant. Suffice it to say that Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, has latched onto any pretext not to negotiate with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government. But it is hardly any wonder that relative moderates like him are fearful. Coddled by the international community, Hamas is solidifying its grip on Gaza, and with Syria's support Hizballah has for all intents and purposes usurped Lebanese sovereignty. Iran may soon provide the rejectionists with a nuclear umbrella. In this geopolitical climate, Abbas would be pilloried if he negotiated in earnest with Netanyahu.

The implication is clear: unless the international community first tackles the jihadists and rejectionists, moderates will be afraid to make the compromises necessary for a settlement. But don't tell that to the Economist. Indeed, in its survey of the entire Middle East, from Afghanistan to Iran to Iraq, the "biggest headache" the editors can find to name is not the metastasizing evil that, in its latest incarnation, inspired the terror bombing of a New Year's eve mass at a Coptic church in Egypt but rather "Jewish colonization in the West Bank." Swept aside as evidently beneath consideration is the possibility that disputed territory captured in a war of self-defense, of immense strategic value to Israel's survival, and deeply rooted in Jewish civilization ought at least to be the subject of direct negotiations between the parties.

All this is par for the course. Reading the Economist, one learns that Israel perpetually, and lethally, magnifies and then bungles even legitimate security threats; that it obdurately "colonizes" the "Palestinian side of the 1967 border"; that its harassment of Arabs extends to setting traffic lights in Palestinian areas to flicker green only briefly. Such "reporting," which falls somewhere on the grid between the false, the farcical, and the fabricated, lends a sobering relevance to the words of billionaire CEO Larry Ellison, quoted in one of the magazine's canny ad campaigns: "I used to think. Now, I just read the Economist."

One trembles to imagine how many among its 1.6 million readers let the Economist do their thinking for them.

As we've already seen, there are apparently a lot of readers who let the Economist do their thinking for them.

What could go wrong?

Labels: anti-Semitism, The Economist

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:29 AM

Anti-Israel Ads Big on SFO's Bay Area Rapid Transit

San Francisco BART has been running an antisemitic outdoor campaign at a number of outdoor BART stations for well over a month now. I became aware of them last month when Seattle had agreed to run antisemitic ads on their buses, but had second thoughts when I submitted pro-Israel educational ads.

After Seattle changed its policy on account of my ads, I submitted our outdoor campaign to San Francisco back on December 29th.

Here is the report from the notorious Jew-hating site "The Electronic Intifada," the same Palestinian blogger that outed Barack Hussein Obama as an anti-semite back in March 2007 (and there is more here).

Check out the ad -- a play on the jihad is a religion of peace.
Pamela Geller,Atlas Shrugs

Philly BDS Flashdance!

This century's nazi freaks ....... do these women know that lesbians are executed in Muslim countries? Do these women know that the jihad in Israel is about Islamic antisemitism, not land? Do these women care about the gender apartheid in the Muslim world?

Why aren't they chanting against this or this or this? (and all of those "thises" were just from yesterday.)

Thanks to David who sent this in and wrote:

These are Princeton students protesting the sale of SABRA & Tribe hummus at a Philly supermarket as part of Israel Apartheid week (or is it month?). As YouTube poster brabon1 wrote: "I have never seen such a conglomeration of more unattractive women in my life".

Greg Gutfeld, host of Red Eye, also points out that SABRA isn't even a product of Israel; the company started here in the US and was recently bought by PepsiCo.

Anyway, the net result of dumb, anti-Semitic uggo's riffing on Lady GAGA just made me want to go out and buy some SABRA and Tribe hummus for the first time in my life. David

Song demanding violence and Jihad on Palestinian TV cultural show

"Palestinian" Islamic TV broadcasts song calling for Jihad against Israel:
"Draw your sword, let it not return"

by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook

Official Palestinian Authority television has broadcast a song calling for Jihad and violence against Israel. The PA TV program on culture included an interview with singer Amar Hasan, and the playing of his song: "The oppressors [Israelis] have gone too far. Therefore Jihad is our right... draw your sword." The words call for violence against Israel in the name of both Arab pride and Islam.

The song was written in the 1940s, and became popular after Israel's independence in 1948. The words calling for violence were included in many violence and terror-promotion clips that were broadcast on PA TV during the terror war (2000 - 2005).

PA TV is controlled by the office of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Jeffrey Goldberg Buries J Street

Jeffrey Goldberg, who at one time was at least sympathetic to J Street, if not a supporter, places the tombstone on the pro-Obama lobby masquerading as pro-Israel.

On one level, I understand what is happening here: J Street is made up of liberal Zionists, as well as non-Zionists, and even a few anti-Zionists, and it has been difficult for it to please its differing constituencies. This is why Ben-Ami, its president, might have felt the need to cover-up the involvement of George Soros, because liberal supporters of Israel know that Soros is unfriendly to the Jewish state, and some, presumably, would not want to be part of a group that counted Soros as a prominent supporter. But on another level, what is going on here is inexplicable, and terribly dispiriting to people who thought that J Street was going to make a useful contribution to the debate over the future of Israel.

The question that Goldberg leaves unanswered is why someone who is non-Zionist or anti-Zionist would want to join a truly pro-Israel organization. Of course, the answer is that J Street never was a truly pro-Israel organization.

Finally, this post from Michael Goldfarb is too good not to add:

The pro-Israel community had always been fearful of J Street’s motives and intentions, and now we know the truth – they are the deceitful anti-Israel activists we’d thought them to be. But it also turns out that they are clownishly incompetent. And for this we can be thankful. Asked by General Westmoreland how to win in war, Moshe Dayan was said to have responded: “First of all, you pick the Arabs as your enemy.” As supporters of Israel, we’ve been lucky enough to find ourselves in a fight with J Street.
Karl in Jerusalem

Israel is Within Obama's Crosshairs

"The purpose of these talks is clear. These will be direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. These negotiations are intended to resolve all final status issues. The goal is a settlement, negotiated between the parties, that ends the occupation which began in 1967 and results in the emergence of an independent, democratic and viable Palestinian state, living side by side in peace and security with a Jewish state of Israel and its other neighbors. That’s the vision we are pursuing." Presdeint Obama, September 1, 2010

Spoken like a true antisemite. "Illegal" occupation? Yes, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Yesterday, Obama laid out his vision for Middle East war:

Flanked by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Sen. George Mitchell, special envoy to the Middle East, Obama said the U.S. would actively and aggressively seek a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians and a comprehensive peace between Israel and all of its Arab neighbors.

The president spelled out the aim of the direct talks that will be led by Clinton. "Our goal is a two-state solution that ends the conflict and ensures the rights and security of both Israelis and Palestinians and despite the inevitable challenges we have never wavered in pursuit of this goal," he said, adding that both sides had taken "important steps" to build confidence over the last year.

There are two states: Israel and Jordan (Jordan represents over 88% of "Palestine").

The relaunch of direct talks after nearly two years comes amid news of the murder of four Israeli settlers by Hamas gunmen in the West Bank town of Hebron -- violence which Obama, Netanyahu, and Abbas condemned. Israeli settlement construction on occupied territory has remained a thorny matter between the two sides as they seek to reach an agreement on final status issues.

Jews in the Jewish homeland remain a point of contention to the Jew haters. Period.

"The goal is a settlement negotiated between the parties that ends the occupation, which began in 1967 and results in the emergence of an independent, democratic and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with a Jewish state of Israel and its other neighbors," Obama said. "That's the vision we are pursuing."

Spoken like a true antisemite.

Ever since B. Hussein came into office, "every single Middle East policy the Obama administration has announced has been antithetical to Israel’s national security interests.” (Caroline Glick)

From President Barack Obama’s intense desire to appease Iran’s mullahs in open discussions; to his stated commitment to establish a Palestinian state as quickly as possible despite the Palestinians’ open rejection of Israel’s right to exist and support for terrorism; to his expressed support for the so-called Saudi peace plan, which would require Israel to commit national suicide by contracting to within indefensible borders and accepting millions of hostile, foreign-born Arabs as citizens and residents of the rump Jewish state; to his decision to end US sanctions against Syria and return the US ambassador to Damascus; to his plan to withdraw US forces from Iraq and so give Iran an arc of uninterrupted control extending from Iran to Lebanon, every single concrete policy Obama has enunciated harms Israel.

From my book: The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America (chapters: Obama and Jews, Obama and Israel)

In the Nuclear Age, the ONLY Enemy is War Itself

With all due respect, I think many pundits are making a heroic assumption. "No country is dumb enough to start a military adventure in Iran." I hope they are right. The US strategic planners knew they could not win in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. Nevertheless, the USA invaded these countries and persisted until they have killed [to date] approximately 7.2 millions human beings.
"Even more to the point, the government and military of Iran has a strict "no first strike" policy, something that countries like the United States and Israel do not have." My city has absorbed 15 Iranian missile hits 8000 strikes throughout the State of Israel. This reflects a blatant disregard for the safety of her people by the Iranian regime. If it can torture and murder its citizens who merely want freedom, how can a foreigner respect the promise of nuclear tranquility? These are perilous times and we should act accordingly.
Isn't "Israel Rules" a Bit of a Stretch?
Many critics assume the US leaders are so feeble they allow Israelis to call the shots. Worse, they imply that Jewish lobbyists are more persuasive than the thousands of others paying bribes to get their way. Worst, they imply the US public is so weak-minded they allow the Israelis to get away with it.
If Israel ruled, she would take much better care of US citizens than the present regime does. Single payer would be law. Unhealthy citizens are a drag on the economy. Israel has developed a full line of electric cars, which would be clogging US roads now. The USA would conduct fewer wars, but would win them. The labor unions would prosper by the EFCA.
I wrote about Israel not Her Lobbyists
In 1948 Israel's leaders were socialists confronted by invaders, 600,000 homeless Holocaust survivors and 600,000 other Jews mostly victims of tyranny. Almost everything she has comes from that era. She is a warfare/welfare state. She developed collective home building, farming and manufactures run by a hopeless socialist bureaucracy. These institutions continue today under the Labor Party.
Israelis consider cradle to grave welfare, single payer and EFCA as inalienable rights due any human being.
Would You Say that US Lobbyists Represent US Citizens?
Of course, they do not. They work for special interests that would deny EFCA and single payer to the people. The oil lobby prohibits the manufacture of electric cars and the citizens suffocate in California.
In a similar fashion, the Israel lobby for the most part does not serve the interests of the Jewish people who live in Israel. I remind everyone that National Socialists murder Jews right up until today. They attack us every day on the borders and in the media. Why should our right to exist be open to question?
Jews Denied the Right to Exist
During the Pakistani terrorist incursion into Mumbai, the Jews were the only group specifically targeted for murder. The attack on the Chabad House ended the religious and social contacts for the dwindling Jewish population in India.
Over one billion people on the planet actively deny the Jewish right to exist. They have mounted seven wars against Israel in her 61 years of existence. Every day the media vilifies Israel for defending herself.
There have been 6000 major deities in the history of the world. Only One - the Hebrew God - ever spoke in person to His entire flock. Why is this historical fact so offensive to others?
Most US Jews are Americans First and Jews Second
This is the way it should be. As with every other ethnic/religious group in the USA, the Jews must play along to get along in their place of residence. If a person does not have a lobbyist to speak up for him in the Congress, he is a political zero. The lobbyist's record of success is largely determined by the amount of money he has behind him. This is a matter of campaign funds delivered to sympathetic hands.
The US military/industrial complex uses Israel as a weapons and tactics testing ground. Thus, unlike other aid recipients, Israel performs a useful service to the US government. The US holds up her end of the bargain with UN support for example.
Regularly, pacifists and pro-Muslim groups vilify Israel for her MIC connections. Maybe, they have a point. To date, however, they have no valid standing in the US government. They are losers in the general scheme of things. The few Jews who have survived the many persecutions did not do so by listening to losers. There is no glory in dying for a cause.
Is the Israel Hater's Next Step to Blame Israel for the Vietnam Fiasco?
Many pundits critical of Israel are famous for avoiding responsibility for every disaster. Their knee-jerk reaction is to blame the Jews. They assume the US leadership and public are simpletons easily beguiled by the crafty Jews and the traitors of the military/industrial complex.
If Israelis were the bloodthirsty thugs the pundits describe, much of the Middle East would have become a radioactive cinder many years ago. By vilifying Jews, they divert attention from the real culprits who have laid waste to the great nation that once was a Republic.