July 29, 2012 | 10:42 pm

Let The [Hate] Games Begin!

Posted by Ariel Blumenthal

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“Sports are a bridge for love, communication and the spreading of peace between nations and should not be used for divisiveness and the spread of racism.” Hallelujah, I’m signing off on that.
Oh, hold on - this was a response to calls for a moment of silence in memory of the Munich ’72 attack victims? Really? By whom? I see. Jibril Rajoub, Palestinian Olympic Committee head. Remove my signature please.

Rajoub redefines the already abused and battered word “Racism”: We’re used to hearing that any criticism of Islam (not a race, incidentally) is racism. And now, make a note: Commemorating the victims of Islamic terrorism is also racism. According to Rajoub the action (killing 11 Israeli athletes during the olympic games) is not important, let alone the victims and their memory. The response (i.e. demanding a minute of silence) is the problem.

And there you have it: The essence of the invented problem of Islamophobia: clarified. Thank you, Jibril.

I wonder what Jacques Count Rogge, head of the International Olympic Committee, thinks about this utter distortion of the Olympic spirit coming from the irresponsible mouth of a national Olympic Committee head. Perhaps he’s not too shocked: in 1996 OIC officials gave the odd reasoning for not commemorating the victims because had they done so, they’d have to commemorate the Palestinians who died during the Olympics. Let’s stop here for a second to review: The victims will not be commemorated, because than we’ll have to commemorate their killers as well.

And there you have it: The essence of the holy principal of symmetry: explained. Your local paper exposes you to it every time there’s violence in the Middle East; Here’s an encore. Thank you OIC.

Meanwhile the Olympic version of the relentless, hysterical Muslim hatred towards Israel goes on:
The Lebanese Judo team in London was infuriated to discover that the Israeli judo athletes are training - alas - right next to them. They threatened to cancel their own training session unless the organizers install a partition between the teams. I hope that if my 2-year-old demands to be separated from some kid he’s pissed off at in day care his teacher would tell him to take it easy. The London organizer, though, chose to comply with the angry Lebanese.

Not really Olympic spirit? Well - it gets better: A Tunisian swimmer is reported to have purposely disqualified himself yesterday mid race, because an Israeli swimmer was - alas - competing. This Tunisian broken Olympic dream is just one in a chain of Muslim Olympic suicides that plague the games every 4 years. As we all get inspired by the human spirit, focused determination and will power of the Olympians, we should consider the stark contrast displayed in self-sabotages of that sort, and the magnitude of hate that must be behind such irrational actions. Michael Phelps wouldn’t have done that. Neither would the Tuvaluan weight-lifter, or the Dominican volleyball team.
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A couple of ending anecdotes:
1. True story: Did you know that all the national flags in the Olympic village include the games’ logo except that of Iran? The logo reminded them of the word “Zion”, and the rest is history. Reminds me of that Muslim cleric’s call to boycott Starbucks Coffee because their logo is queen Esther. Or that other Imam who said that Pepsi stands for Pay Every Pence [to] Save Israel. Oh, and also that other Imam - never mind. I can go on all night.

2. The organization that carried out the terrorist attack in Munich was called Black September, after the September 1970 war between the Jordanian government and Palestinian militias in Jordan. The Jordanian 1972 athletes were fine though - the Israelis not so much.
Not the last time: Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1991, igniting the wrath of the US and the international community. Who got the missiles during the gulf war that ensued? That’s right, Israel, a country not involved in the war at all.
Next: Syria?

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July 15, 2012 | 6:44 pm

The Book of Deception and Betrayal

Posted by Ariel Blumenthal

“If there were an Oscar given for doublespeak, the Palestinian political leadership would win it, hands down” writes Richard Chesnoff, NY Daily News. He reviews the new book Deception: Betraying the Peace Process, that as Isabel Kershner of the NY Times explains “...Catalogs dozens of examples of messages broadcast by the Palestinian Authority for its domestic audience that would seem at odds with the pursuit of peace and a two-state solution”. “The cumulative effect of the depth of the hatred and delegitimization for Jews and Israel that is mainstream opinion among Palestinians is devastating” writes Jonathan S. Tobin on Commentary after reading the book. Israeli daily Ha’aretz Puts it somewhat more bluntly: “The book’s findings, in some cases, trigger concern, in most others, nausea”.

Itamar Marcus is one satisfied reader of these reviews. The organization he heads, Palestinian Media Watch, has been monitoring Palestinian media and digging out gems of hate and violence since 1996. Marcus has been making his case in Parliaments and on the media around the world; Deception is his latest cry. The NY Jewish Week listens: “The Palestinian leadership endorses and promotes the belief that there is no room for a Jewish state in the region and that the Jews, not just Israelis, are evil and must be eliminated.” Robert L. Bernstein, founder and chair emeritus of Human Rights Watch asks: “Why would the Palestinian Authority be spreading all these libels and lies if they wanted their people to achieve reconciliation with Israel?” Rhetorical question, most likely. He concludes: “Government-sponsored hate speech is incompatible with peace”.

“Neither the Palestinian desperation nor the rise of radical Islam justify the hateful rhetoric on the Palestinian side” says Norwegian writer Arne Orum, a self-proclaimed friend of the Palestinians, “What shall we say to our Palestinian friends about it?” His government, as one of the biggest contributors to the Palestinian Authority, finds itself indirectly complicit. As one of my favorite writers Ben Dror Yemini of Israeli daily Ma’ariv writes: “An abstract of the book ... [should be sent] to every organization, institute and country in the West which helps to fund this brainwashing.”

Deception:Betraying the Peace Process is the latest evidence that hatred towards the Jews and subsequently the “Zionists” was, and still is

the

problem in the Middle East; Anyone who wonders in frustration how come there’s still no peace over there should look no further. The categorical refusal of the Arabs (not only the Palestinians) to allow for a Jewish state, any Jewish state, in the Middle East is the single most consistent thread in the history of the conflict, preceding not only the occupation of the West Bank, but the very founding of the state of Israel. The constant venomous stream of violent hate that accompanies this obstinate rejection is as routine as the sound of traffic in the city. The systematic carelessness with which Arab leaders have promoted, escalated and used hatred against the Jews for many decades is an infuriating insolence considering the complexity of the conflict and the fact that everybody else in the world is trying to resolve, not exacerbate it. 

How many times have I seen Palestinian Media Watch automatically and categorically dismissed on political grounds for being right-wing…? we can assume that when Itamar Marcus decided to commit the rest of his life to unearthing a specific truth he saw as crucial, he did that with personal political conviction. We can even assume that this conviction would have had some editorial effect. Yet the nature of PMW is that of a reporter: the material brought forth is simply quotes, usually with no editorial commentary save for the selection of the clips itself. You may stumble upon a few clearly selective cuts, but when that happens to me, I remember the difference between total dismissal and critical consumption of information. Facts are never political; Perception is. Consciously choosing to shrug off important findings from an exclusive source because of simplistic political-profiling should be done at one’s own risk, and until a left-leaning organization takes on the task of monitoring Palestinian hate speech, “Ignoring or seeking to marginalize the truths that PMW has uncovered will only lead to more bloodshed, not peace” as Tobin’s review on Commentary concludes.

“When one uses children to become agents of hatred, the crime is 100 times more severe ... There is nothing more urgent today than this subject” says Ellie Wiesel. Anyone thinks that institutionalized hate mongering is not a crime? That it’s possible to achieve peace in a culture of hatred? Please stand up.

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July 1, 2012 | 2:24 am

So - Who’s The Good Guy Again?

Posted by Ariel Blumenthal

“The conventional wisdom goes that the Arab Spring has been a good thing” read an item intro on PRI’s “The World” last week, “Just look at Egypt: a dictator is out and a new leader has just been democratically elected”. A salute of that sort to a nascent democracy is natural and understandable, as intuitive as bundling Egyptian democracy with the prospects of tolerance, progress and peace in Egypt. It’s not always so. Democracy and the evolutionary ideas we associate with it have been “un-bundled” before - In the West, and certainly in the rest of the world.

The 2006 election of Hamas in Gaza is an example. Both “Hamas” and “Gaza” are mentioned in the news pretty much only in the context of the war with Israel, missing that internally and off-camera, the Hamas government is hated by most Gazans for its oppression and human rights violations. Of course, no popularity is required when the government is not up for re-election, just sufficient hold on the population. Democracy? Not really.

In the Israeli-Palestinian front Hamas offers nothing but ultra-nationalism, militarism, and religious zeal. This Democratic choice was not a peaceful one. The Hamas promotes unacceptable ideology, as far beyond the rules of civilization as an American President calling for the killing of all illegal immigrants. Be prepared to read “Ideology” a few more times in this post, because ideology is far more important than the vehicle used to lift it to power.

Robert Scheer, Editor In Chief of TruthDig.com, blamed the US government more than once for daring not to accept the Hamas government, after all - it was democratically elected. This view sanctifies the platform and disregards the ideology, reducing democracy to a political-platform-laundering operation. Would an American President calling for the killing of all illegal immigrants be legitimate because he’d won his office democratically? You need 2 ingredients in order to properly mix democracy: The right to vote and the accountability of the electorate for its choice. One without the other is worth zero.

How much accountability will be practiced by the Muslim Brotherhood and President Morsi? This is the million-dollar question. Prof. Yoram Meytal, an Egypt expert at the Ben Gurion University, says there’s a “great tension between the hostile ideology and rhetoric of the Muslim Brotherhood towards Israel and the necessity for pragmatism.” Indeed, the Muslim Brotherhood, since its inception in 1922, has been immersed in Islamist Antisemitism that segued smoothly into anti-Zionist and anti-Israel hate of the explicit, fanatic brand. Egyptian Brotherhood militias had fought the Jews as early as the twilight days of the British Mandate in 1948 (way before the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza), as a precursor to the Egyptian military invasion later that year. The Brotherhood’s rhetoric against Israel is genocidal, much like the Hamas’ (which itself is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood).

Morsi claimed last year that “The Zionists aspire to destroy Egypt”, and despite him personally practicing caution with anti-Israel hate speech (pragmatism?), his circle and movement continue business as usual. In a Morsi campaign event on May 1st notorious cleric Safwat Hijazi promised that “Jerusalem will be the capital of the United Arab States” and that “Millions of martyrs march toward Jerusalem”, as an upbeat MC chanted with the crowd: “Morsi will liberate Gaza tomorrow”. A singer followed: “Forget about the conferences, Brandish your weapons, Say your prayers”. Morsi, naturally, was right there center stage.

Meanwhile, Brotherhood-affiliated clerics, war-happy and itching for violence, are keeping their racist hate simmering. “Can’t young Egyptians fight the Jews? Can’t they devour them?” asks cleric Hazem Shuman on Al-Rahma TV, boasting that “Many millions of our young men are ready to fight the Jews!“ Shuman remissly forsakes the catastrophe, defeat and humiliation Egypt had suffered 4 times in just 25 years fighting Israel. Yes, it’s the ideology, stupid. In the mind and heart of the faithful, religious duty eclipses progress, prevents moderation, and sanctions tragedy and human suffering.

So far and for many decades the likes of Mubarak kept this chaotic menace from bursting. The events in Egypt are historical not only because of the democratic process, this is also the defeat of the old power at the hands of its nemesis; The shocking, must-see series finale; A drama 90 years in the making.

So does that make Mubarak the good guy? No dictator can be a good guy. In this story, turns out, there are no good guys. Well, there are, for me, good guys: Remember liberal Wael Ghonim, that Google engineer from the first days of the revolution? He was nice, wasn’t he. His ilk are few, weak and display levels of testosterone way too low to play with these other boys - they’re absolutely marginal.

Were these insignificant liberals the image of the Egyptian revolution you had in your head? Well - between the rule of a strong man, the rule of Allah, and the rule of Democracy, the latter, unfortunately, is not even a player. The Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t like Democracy, but it identified it as the vehicle to power - and won. Will there be another election? Who knows. The first gloomy hint was strong man Omar Suleiman and runner-up Ahmed Shafik’s flee out of Egypt for fear of prosecution. (Have you even heard about that?)

As far as I know Nicolas Sarkozy did not feel the need to seek overseas refuge from Francois Holand’s wrath. No, he’s probably chilling out in Saint Tropez right about now.
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BONUS: The always animated Muhammed Hussein Ya’aqub’s gossip-meal:

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