Tuesday, 25 February 2014, 1:33 pm
By Jamie Neikrie

This past weekend’s protests outside the St. James Theatre demonstrated the ugly side of public debate.

Protests by John Minto and a pro-Palestinian coalition clashed with responders from the Wellington Jewish community and the Auckland-based Flaxmere Christiam Fellowship, outside a performance by an Israeli dance troupe, Batsheva.

While both sides offered literature to advance their stance, the protests soon devolved into a shouting match, with microphones from the pro-Palestinian side blaring “Shame! Shame! Shame!” across Courtenay Place.

I understand the pro-Palestinian point of view. They are seeking to represent the rights of a minority whom they see as unfairly oppressed and repressed. And they see the Batsheva’s performance as an attempt to distract from Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

But their presence outside of the performance was wrong. Yes, Batsheva receives funding from the Israeli government. But that does not mean that they represent the will or the interests of the Israeli government. In fact, the dance troupe’s 18 dancers hail from seven difference countries, representing different cultures and opinions. The troupe has existed since 1964, and its only outreach and education programs seek to bring dance and the arts to communities across the world.

Cultural boycotts have long been a staple of New Zealand activism. New Zealand’s boycott of the South African Rugby garnered world support and led to the International Olympic Committee expelling South Africa from the 1964 and 1968 games. John Minto has been consistent in his boycotting techniques, but he seems to have lost sight of the goal. The South African Rugby team was the pride and joy of the country, a dominant force sent around to world to demonstrate South Africa’s power. Refusing to play South Africa and denying their sporting dominance sent a message to the government of South Africa, and to the world. But what does protesting an acclaimed dance troupe say?

Nearly every country employs art programs as a means of cultural outreach. Such diplomacy serves to exchange ideas and history and foster understanding between nations. The United Kingdom has the British Council, Germany has the Goethe Institute, and France has the Alliance Francaise. When the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra undertook a worldwide tour in 2005, they weren’t supporting John Key’s economic programs or calling for the Labour party to retake control. They are only representing the cultural and artistic achievement of the country, something for which New Zealand should be proud.

I am drawing a fine line in the sand between Batsheva and the South African Rugby team, but it is one that needs to be recognized. By viewing cultural outreach programs as propaganda, we are encouraging cultural ignorance and nativism.

To claim that the pro-Palestinian protests didn’t hurt the dance troupe would be disingenuous. One of the protestors boasted that their efforts had resulted in at least a dozen people choosing not to attend the performance. It’s possible that these people, after reading the pro-Palestinian pamphlets, were convinced that attending the performance would be to tacitly support an oppressive regime. It’s also possible that they felt the “Shame! Shame! Shame!” that the protestors forced on them. Either way, the actions of the protestors had a negative effect on the dance troupe, punishment that was wholly underserved.

The other unfortunate side of the pro-Palestinian protests was their use of the word “apartheid,” and their comparison of South Africa to Israel. The Palestinian people are the minority. And they are largely separated in public life from the Israelis. But unlike the blacks in South Africa during apartheid, they aren’t members of the same country. The Gaza Strip and the West Bank have their own governments (one of which is seen as a terrorist organization in much of the world) and leadership, and Palestine is recognized as a sovereign nation by most countries in the world. As a people, the Palestinians wield far more rights that the blacks in South Africa did.

And to claim that the Palestinian people are an unfairly maligned people, oppressed by the Israeli bully, is to ignore a large part of the narrative. The Palestinian government continues to deny Israel’s right to exist, making any diplomacy nearly impossible. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is geographical and political, but it is also a product of cultural, historical, and religious clashes that create a far difference scenario from the South African apartheid.

Israel is far from innocent, but the separation of the Palestinians from the Israelis is as much a safety valve as it is a cultural divide.

When Great Britain gave Jerusalem to the Jews after World War II, it was condemning Israel to a religious war. The situation has been unfortunate for every side, including Palestine. But Israel has continued to maintain Jerusalem as an open homeland for the three major Abrahamic religions and welcome Palestinians into the city. Painting Israel as the oppressive bully, the modern South Africa, is a misleading narrative. Using this narrative to protest an Israeli dance troupe with no political ties is even worse.

Source:  http://tinyurl.com/m2l9sfb

This is the text of an opinion piece written by NZFOI and published by the Press back in 2006.  The article was recently discovered in our archives and re-published here for posterity:

Jews: a name that draws sharp reaction, from respect and honour, to paranoia and hatred. Yet Jews have contributed some of the greatest advances in art, music, literature, legislation, philosophy, science, technology and religion. The world has been greatly enriched because of their existence.

Nevertheless, controversy has never strayed far from their door. Few groups devote such high feelings and consequently it is difficult to sort fact from fiction.

New Zealand is a long way from the Middle East conflict and together with the complexities surrounding the dispute between Israel, the Palestinians and its neighbours, it is easy to get the wrong impression.

The New Zealand Friends of Israel Association was formed over 30 years ago to build friendship and goodwill between New Zealanders, Jews and Israelis through contact, education and discussion.

Being friends does not mean that we agree with everything that Israel says or does; in many cases when the occasion requires it, we do not hesitate to directly express our disagreement.

However, we have noticed several recurring false beliefs regarding the Middle Eastern situation. For example, that Israel is an illegal state or Israel does not want a negotiated peace.

So we have decided to enter the debate by raising awareness of the facts that reveal a different context and perspective to the news we see.

For example, each time Israel has made significant concessions as a result of peace negotiation, the Palestinians have met the Israelis with renewed violence. Why?

Hamas is  first and foremost a religious organisation. Its name is an acronym for the Arabic phrase that means Islamic Resistance Movement. Its charter states categorically that it is an Islamic an organisation first.

It also states that all Jews must be hunted down and even creation will assist in their doom. They quote the Koran to justify this belief.

A land that is no longer under sharia law is an affront to many Moslems. Some will not rest until its jurisdiction is restored.

Realising that Israel cannot be taken in one step, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, a predecessor of Hamas, developed a plan in 1974 to take Israel gradually, piece by piece. Each new piece gained will become a new base from which the war can be waged.

We see this unfolding before our eyes. It explains the unrelenting violence despite the Gaza pullout.

A final negotiated peace would mean giving up Hamas’s religious visions. This dynamic provides the foundational context for the entire conflict.

Some believe that taking Israel is but one step in making the ideal of Islamic law being the paramount authority in every land and they are prepared to make it happen by force.

Thus we see the philosophical mechanism by which the Western world is also threatened.

One of the terrorists who were planning to bomb the New York Subway admitted that he was trained in a Palestinian camp located in Lebanon. The problem Israel is facing is spreading.

Some New Zealanders hope that if we leave them alone then they will leave us alone. History suggests that this is not a realistic hope.

Many New Zealanders love to hate the United States. What we may say about the US, it’s financial aid and political backing has certainly assisted Israel from being carved up by its neighbouring countries long ago.

New Zealanders love to favour the underdog and the pictures we see often reinforced this perception that the Palestinians and their allies need all the support they can get. We have seen that this is a flawed but nevertheless powerful view.

Thus debate often becomes a one-sided criticism of Israel, and Palestinian terrorism is even compared favourably with the efforts of the French resistance. This dishonours the French heroic efforts because they never indiscriminately targeted civilians.

The urge to favour the underdog also fuels the accusation that Israel’s response to the recent kidnappings is disproportionate.

Israel is not just fighting its terrorist enemies. They are but proxies for its old nation state foes: Syria and Iran.

As New Zealanders we need to read widely, try to think independently and dispassionately and address the facts.

Develop a questioning mind, do not jump to conclusions quickly. seek out other enquirers. Learn about Middle Eastern culture. Then, speak up for justice. Talk to your friends. Contact your local MP. Right to the Minister of foreign affairs. Write your paper.

The Jews have given us Moses, Jesus Christ, Albert Einstein, Chagall, Johann Strauss, George Gershwin and Bob Dylan to name but a few.

More recently, Jewish technologists have contributed to the development of Microsoft Windows and Intel chips.

Jews are disproportionately represented among Nobel prizewinners. The world is a better and richer place for having the in it. Who will stand by them?

Barry Thompson is the president of New Zealand friends of Israel, www.nzfoi.org.  This article was written by him and the Friends of Israel committee.

By Tony Kan

“From Matron to Martyr” is a fictional diary of a real Scottish woman, Jane Haining, who remained in WW2 Hungary to care for Jewish girls at a private school.   Her decision led to her arrest as a Jewish sympathizer and ultimately to her death in Auschwitz.  Her sacrifice was recognized by Yad Vashem who named her as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.

The book describes her early years, the circumstances that fatefully brought her to Hungary and the work of the Scottish Missionary Society which opened a private school to provide education for Jewish girls.  According to the book, the school gave religious instruction, but no pressure was exerted to convert students to Christianity.

For me, the unexpected gem of the book was the description of Anti-Semitism in Hungary at that time.  Most Westerners would be unfamiliar with this portion of WW2 history.  Yet, if her descriptions of persecution, ostracization and violence against Jews there are true, then it is high time that the world became familiar with it. I believe the author, Lynley Smith’s real message is that not much has changed in Hungary since the War, Hungarian Anti-Semitism is alive and well.

Together with other increasingly frequent reports of Anti-Semitic beliefs and prejudices in Europe, there is much cause for concern amongst those who abhor racial intolerance.

Smith, L (2012). From Matron to Martyr. Tate Publishing, Oklahoma, USA.  208 pages.  ISBN 978-1-61862-200-6

By Alan Dershowitz

The Obama Administration’s preference for diplomacy with Iran over military action is commendable. There is a chance that diplomacy may even achieve more than sanctions. This possibility lies at the root of the deal recently undertaken with regard to Iran’s nuclear program.

No one knows for certain whether Iran is for real when it promises never to seek or develop any nuclear weapons in exchange for an end to sanctions and to its international isolation. No one knows for sure whether there is an internal struggle going on within Iran in which that issue is being debated and considered. No one knows for sure whether the deal recently signed will encourage those who favor ending Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons (if there are any such) or whether it will strengthen hardliners who are simply playing for time. The only certainty is that we are uncertain about the true Iranian motivations underlying its willingness to enter into negotiations and to freeze its nuclear program for six months in exchange for a reduction in sanctions.

Diplomacy under conditions of uncertainty always entails risks on all sides. The United States is prepared to take the risk because it has far less to lose if it turns out to be wrong. Israel and Saudi Arabia are unwilling to shoulder the risk because they have so much more to lose if the American assessment turns out to be wrong.

Many American experts—diplomatic, nuclear, political, economic—believe that even the risks to the United States exceed the benefits, and that accordingly this was a bad deal for our country. Others disagree. The important point is that this is not only a dispute between the United States and Israel, as some seem to be characterizing it. It is a hotly disputed issue within the United States, within the Democratic Party, among nuclear experts and within the diplomatic establishment.

Nor should this be seen by those who oppose the deal, as I do, as a demonstration of bad faith on the part of the Obama Administration toward Israel. This a reasonable disagreement between friends as to the best course of action, both over the short and long terms. The stakes, however, are exceedingly high for Israel, because it cannot afford for the United States to be wrong in its assessment and balancing of the acknowledged risks.

I think the United States is wrong, because I believe that the supreme leader of Iran is determined to secure the ability to obtain nuclear weapons in its quest for hegemony over the Middle East. I do not believe that the smiling face of its newly-elected (with the approval of the supreme leader) president reflects the attitude of the current Iranian leadership. I also believe that one of the goals of the Iranian leadership is to drive a deep wedge between the United States and its allies in the Middle East, especially Israel and Saudi Arabia. This deal has helped to do that.

Now that the six month clock has begun to tick, what can be done to make the best out of a dangerous situation? First, Congress can hang two Swords of Damocles over the neck of Iran. It can now authorize the president to take military action in the event that Iran breaks its part of the deal and secretly begins to move toward developing nuclear weapons. Second, it can legislate harsh sanctions that would automatically go into effect if it became clear that Iran was simply buying time and had no interest in halting its nuclear weapons program.

The Iranians came to the negotiating table only because of a combination of harsh sanctions and a realistic military option. Both of these sticks must be kept on the table if the carrot of reduced sanctions is to have any possibility of working.

Israel too must maintain its military pressure on Iran, and the United States should make it clear that if Israel were to feel the need to deploy its military option as a last resort, it could count on the support of the United States.

These are tense and dangerous times. The risks on all sides are considerable. This is the time for allies to stick together and not to allow their differences to create the kind of wedge that Iran seeks to encourage and exploit. Unless there is a concerted commitment to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapons capacity, the end result will replicate the North Korean model, where the façade of diplomacy was used as a cover by North Korea to develop nuclear weapons.

If Iran ends up using this deal to help it develop nuclear weapons, the result would be a game changer that could cause a catastrophe. An Iran armed with nuclear weapons must be prevented at all costs, as President Obama has promised to do. We must keep our word and keep the military option on the table if diplomacy fails, as it may well do. The only thing more dangerous than a military attack against Iran’s nuclear weapons program would be a nuclear-armed Iran.

Source:  Algemainer

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alan Dershowitz is an American lawyer, jurist, and political commentator. He is a prominent scholar on United States constitutional law and criminal law. He has spent most of his career at Harvard Law School where in 1967, at the age of 28, he became the youngest full professor of law in its history. He has held the Felix Frankfurter professorship there since 1993.

Dershowitz is known for his involvement in several high-profile legal cases and as a commentator on the Arab–Israeli conflict. As a criminal appellate lawyer, he has won 13 of the 15 murder and attempted murder cases he has handled, and has represented a series of celebrity clients, including Mike Tyson, Patty Hearst, and Jim Bakker. His most notable cases include his role in 1984 in overturning the conviction of Claus von Bülow for the attempted murder of his wife, Sunny, and as the appellate adviser for the defense in the O.J. Simpson murder trial in 1995.

A political liberal,he is the author of a number of books about politics and law, including Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von Bülow Case (1985), the basis of the 1990 film; Chutzpah (1991); Reasonable Doubts: The Criminal Justice System and the O.J. Simpson Case (1996); the best-selling The Case for Israel (2003); Rights From Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights (2004) and The Case for Peace (2005).

By George Friedman

A deal between Iran and the P-5+1 (the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany) was reached Saturday night. The Iranians agreed to certain limitations on their nuclear program while the P-5+1 agreed to remove certain economic sanctions. The next negotiation, scheduled for six months from now depending on both sides’ adherence to the current agreement, will seek a more permanent resolution. The key players in this were the United States and Iran. The mere fact that the U.S. secretary of state would meet openly with the Iranian foreign minister would have been difficult to imagine a few months ago, and unthinkable at the beginning of the Islamic republic.

The U.S. goal is to eliminate Iran’s nuclear weapons before they are built, without the United States having to take military action to eliminate them. While it is commonly assumed that the United States could eliminate the Iranian nuclear program at will with airstrikes, as with most military actions, doing so would be more difficult and riskier than it might appear at first glance. The United States in effect has now traded a risky and unpredictable air campaign for some controls over the Iranian nuclear program.

The Iranians’ primary goal is regime preservation. While Tehran managed the Green Revolution in 2009 because the protesters lacked broad public support, Western sanctions have dramatically increased the economic pressure on Iran and have affected a wide swath of the Iranian public. It isn’t clear that public unhappiness has reached a breaking point, but were the public to be facing years of economic dysfunction, the future would be unpredictable. The election of President Hassan Rouhani to replace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after the latter’s two terms was a sign of unhappiness. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei clearly noted this, displaying a willingness to trade a nuclear program that had not yet produced a weapon for the elimination of some sanctions.

The logic here suggests a process leading to the elimination of all sanctions in exchange for the supervision of Iran’s nuclear activities to prevent it from developing a weapon. Unless this is an Iranian trick to somehow buy time to complete a weapon and test it, I would think that the deal could be done in six months. An Iranian ploy to create cover for building a weapon would also demand a reliable missile and a launch pad invisible to surveillance satellites and the CIA, National Security Agency, Mossad, MI6 and other intelligence agencies. The Iranians would likely fail at this, triggering airstrikes however risky they might be and putting Iran back where it started economically. While this is a possibility, the scenario is not likely when analyzed closely.

While the unfolding deal involves the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany, two countries intensely oppose it: Israel and Saudi Arabia. Though not powers on the order of the P-5+1, they are still significant. There is a bit of irony in Israel and Saudi Arabia being allied on this issue, but only on the surface. Both have been intense enemies of Iran, and close allies of the United States; each sees this act as a betrayal of its relationship with Washington.

The View from Saudi Arabia

In a way, this marks a deeper shift in relations with Saudi Arabia than with Israel. Saudi Arabia has been under British and later American protection since its creation after World War I. Under the leadership of the Sauds, it became a critical player in the global system for a single reason: It was a massive producer of oil. It was also the protector of Mecca and Medina, two Muslim holy cities, giving the Saudis an added influence in the Islamic world on top of their extraordinary wealth.

It was in British and American interests to protect Saudi Arabia from its enemies, most of which were part of the Muslim world. The United States protected the Saudis from radical Arab socialists who threatened to overthrow the monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula. It later protected Saudi Arabia from Saddam Hussein after he invaded Kuwait. But it also protected Saudi Arabia from Iran.

Absent the United States in the Persian Gulf, Iran would have been the most powerful regional military power. In addition, the Saudis have a substantial Shiite minority concentrated in the country’s oil-rich east. The Iranians, also Shia, had a potential affinity with them, and thereby the power to cause unrest in Saudi Arabia.

Until this agreement with Iran, the United States had an unhedged commitment to protect Saudi Arabia from the Iranians. Given the recent deal, and potential follow-on deals, this commitment becomes increasingly hedged. The problem from the Saudi point of view is that while there was a wide ideological gulf between the United States and Iran, there was little in the way of substantial issues separating Washington from Tehran. The United States did not want Iran to develop nuclear weapons. The Iranians didn’t want the United States hindering Iran’s economic development. The fact was that getting a nuclear weapon was not a fundamental Iranian interest, and crippling Iran’s economy was not a fundamental interest to the United States absent an Iranian nuclear program.

If the United States and Iran can agree on this quid pro quo, the basic issues are settled. And there is something drawing them together. The Iranians want investment in their oil sector and other parts of their economy. American oil companies would love to invest in Iran, as would other U.S. businesses. As the core issue separating the two countries dissolves, and economic relations open up — a step that almost by definition will form part of a final agreement — mutual interests will appear.

There are other significant political issues that can’t be publicly addressed. The United States wants Iran to temper its support for Hezbollah’s militancy, and guarantee it will not support terrorism. The Iranians want guarantees that Iraq will not develop an anti-Iranian government, and that the United States will work to prevent this. (Iran’s memories of its war with Iraq run deep.) The Iranians will also want American guarantees that Washington will not support anti-Iranian forces based in Iraq.

From the Saudi point of view, Iranian demands regarding Iraq will be of greatest concern. Agreements or not, it does not want a pro-Iranian Shiite state on its northern border. Riyadh has been funding Sunni fighters throughout the region against Shiite fighters in a proxy war with Iran. Any agreement by the Americans to respect Iranian interests in Iraq would represent a threat to Saudi Arabia.

The View from Israel

From the Israeli point of view, there are two threats from Iran. One is the nuclear program. The other is Iranian support not only for Hezbollah but also for Hamas and other groups in the region. Iran is far from Israel and poses no conventional military threat. The Israelis would be delighted if Iran gave up its nuclear program in some verifiable way, simply because they themselves have no reliable means to destroy that program militarily. What the Israelis don’t want to see is the United States and Iran making deals on their side issues, especially the political ones that really matter to Israel.

The Israelis have more room to maneuver than the Saudis do. Israel can live with a pro-Iranian Iraq. The Saudis can’t; from their point of view, it is only a matter of time before Iranian power starts to encroach on their sphere of influence. The Saudis can’t live with an Iranian-supported Hezbollah. The Israelis can and have, but don’t want to; the issue is less fundamental to the Israelis than Iraq is to the Saudis.

But in the end, this is not the problem that the Saudis and Israelis have. Their problem is that both depend on the United States for their national security. Neither country can permanently exist in a region filled with dangers without the United States as a guarantor. Israel needs access to American military equipment that it can’t build itself, like fighter aircraft. Saudi Arabia needs to have American troops available as the ultimate guarantor of their security, as they were in 1990. Israel and Saudi Arabia have been the two countries with the greatest influence in Washington. As this agreement shows, that is no longer the case. Both together weren’t strong enough to block this agreement. What frightens them the most about this agreement is that fact. If the foundation of their national security is the American commitment to them, then the inability to influence Washington is a threat to their national security.

There are no other guarantors available. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went to Moscow, clearly trying to get the Russians to block the agreement. He failed. But even if he had succeeded, he would have alienated the United States, and would have gotten instead a patron incapable of supplying the type of equipment Israel might need when Israel might need it. The fact is that neither the Saudis nor the Israelis have a potential patron other than the United States.

U.S. Regional Policy

The United States is not abandoning either Israel or Saudi Arabia. A regional policy based solely on the Iranians would be irrational. What the United States wants to do is retain its relationship with Israel and Saudi Arabia, but on modified terms. The modification is that U.S. support will come in the context of a balance of power, particularly between Iran and Saudi Arabia. While the United States is prepared to support the Saudis in that context, it will not simply support them absolutely. The Saudis and Israelis will have to live with things that they have not had to live with before — namely, an American concern for a reasonably strong and stable Iran regardless of its ideology.

The American strategy is built on experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. Washington has learned that it has interests in the region, but that the direct use of American force cannot achieve those goals, partly because imposing solutions takes more force than the United States has and partly because the more force it uses, the more resistance it generates. Therefore, the United States needs a means of minimizing its interests, and pursuing those it has without direct force.

With its interests being limited, the United States’ strategy is a balance of power. The most natural balance of power is Sunni versus Shia, the Arabs against the Iranians. The goal is not war, but sufficient force on each side to paralyze the other. In that sense, a stable Iran and a more self-reliant Saudi Arabia are needed. Saudi Arabia is not abandoned, but nor is it the sole interest of the United States.

In the same sense, the United States is committed to the survival of Israel. If Iranian nuclear weapons are prevented, the United States has fulfilled that commitment, since there are no current threats that could conceivably threaten Israeli survival. Israel’s other interests, such as building settlements in the West Bank, do not require American support. If the United States determines that they do not serve American interests (for example, because they radicalize the region and threaten the survival of Jordan), then the United States will force Israel to abandon the settlements by threatening to change its relationship with Israel. If the settlements do not threaten American interests, then they are Israel’s problem.

Israel has outgrown its dependence on the United States. It is not clear that Israel is comfortable with its own maturation, but the United States has entered a new period where what America wants is a mature Israel that can pursue its interests without recourse to the United States. And if Israel finds it cannot have what it wants without American support, Israel may not get that support, unless Israel’s survival is at stake.

In the same sense, the perpetual Saudi inability to create an armed force capable of effectively defending itself has led the United States to send troops on occasion — and contractors always — to deal with the problem. Under the new strategy, the expectation is that Saudi soldiers will fight Saudi Arabia’s wars — with American assistance as needed, but not as an alternative force.

With this opening to Iran, the United States will no longer be bound by its Israeli and Saudi relationships. They will not be abandoned, but the United States has broader interests than those relationships, and at the same time few interests that rise to the level of prompting it to directly involve U.S. troops. The Saudis will have to exert themselves to balance the Iranians, and Israel will have to wend its way in a world where it has no strategic threats, but only strategic problems, like everyone else has. It is not a world in which Israeli or Saudi rigidity can sustain itself.

“Israelis, Saudis and the Iranian Agreement is republished with permission of Stratfor.”

By ABRAHAM COOPER AND HAROLD BRACKMAN

11/09/2013

Simon Wiesenthal warned then that we would all pay a price for our silence in face of the tyrant’s crime against humanity.

Is anyone surprised that – with his back against the wall – Bashar Assad and his Iranian and Hezbollah allies would threaten “retaliation” against Israel if President Barack Obama goes through with his threatened strike against the Syrian regime? The Jewish state has played the role of Middle East bogeyman for distressed Arab dictators for so long no one even bothers to ask: how dare you threaten “retaliation” against a nation that has no involvement in your civil war? More shocking, however, are the Israel-haters and Syria apologists in Europe and the US who’ve launched their own preemptive strike accusing American Jews as well as the Jewish state of fomenting yet another US war in the Middle East.

Of course, that charge is bunk. Israelis don’t need the threat of US intervention to deter Assad. Bashar knows that the first chemicaltipped missile he tries to launch at Israel will guarantee his demise. It is true that some, but far from all, American Jews support limited military action to punish the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons use, but – as the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Rabbi Marvin Hier told The Washington Post – this is not “a Jewish issue,” but a humanitarian challenge.

We believe that an appropriate response to such brazen “crimes against humanity” is called for because, left unchallenged, Assad will continue to deploy chemical weapons which could help set the stage in the near future for WMDs to be delivered to a zip code near you.

The “Jews as warmongers” canard is not new. Back in the 1920s, you could purchase a Model T at a Ford dealership for $250 and for a quarter more a copy of the four-volume The International Jew, an American knockoff of the notorious Russian forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Readers of The International Jew learned that “the Jewish Liquor Trust” monopolized bootleg beer and that jazz was “Yiddish moron music.” But those charges were tame compared to Ford’s post-World War I embrace of “the ancient saying” that “Wars are the Jews’ harvest.”

Echoing the libel that all wars were manufactured on a Jewish assembly line, Henry Ford’s admirer, Adolf Hitler, warned “World Jewry” on January 30, 1939, that: “If the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the bolshevization of the earth and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!” By 1945, six million “warmongering” European Jews, who controlled no territory and had no armies to threaten anyone, had been murdered by Hitler’s henchmen and his eager enablers.

In our time, the toxic libel of Ford and the fuhrer that “wars are the Jews’ harvest” is being repackaged and applied to the Middle East:

• A motley crew of conspiracy theorists, ranging from Lyndon LaRouche to Pat Buchanan to Louis Farrakhan to Mel Gibson, blamed America’s toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 on Israelis and American “Jewish neo-cons” despite the fact that the Israeli government had doubts about the wisdom of focusing primarily on Iraq rather than Iran and that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld have yet to be accused of being Jews.

• During the UK debate about punishing the Syrian regime, British MP George Galloway, a long-time supporter of Saddam, Hezbollah and Hamas, posed the question: “Who’s responsible for the most recent chemical weapons attack in Syria? …If there has been use of chemical weapons, it wasn’t al- Qaida…. Here’s my theory.  Israel gave them the chemical weapons.”

• William Polk, an old State Department Middle East hand and seasoned Israel basher, writing in The Atlantic, charged Israel’s Mossad of falsifying taped transcripts of Syrian officials discussing WMDs. Polk also blames the Jewish state – without a scintilla of evidence – of using chemical weapons in Lebanon and Gaza.
• Bob Dreyfus in The Nation magazine – which in the 1930s and 1940s supported Stalinist totalitarianism before, during and after the Hitler-Stalin Pact – reveals the “dirty little notso- secret behind President Obama’s much-lobbied-for, illegal and strategically incompetent war against Syria is that it’s not about Syria at all,” but rather about an implied Israeli conspiracy to draw the naïve Obama into a war against Islamist Iran.
• Blogger Andrew Sullivan accuses the American Israel Public Affairs Committee of “storming… [Capitol] Hill…  for yet another major war in the Middle East.”

In the 1980s, Saddam Hussein used poison gas to murder thousands of Iraqi Kurds.

Simon Wiesenthal warned then that we would all pay a price for our silence in face of the tyrant’s crime against humanity. Imagine what the world would be like today if a coalition of the willing had punished Saddam, then and there for verified WMDs, but we didn’t. Now Assad has taken a page from Saddam’s mass-murder playbook.

Many of us believe that failure to act now could bring a wider and deadlier wider war later. But whatever the outcome – one thing is certain – they’ve already blamed the Jews.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper is associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Dr. Harold Brackman, a historian, is a consultant to the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Source:  Jerusalem Post.

Shabtai Shavit, who served at the helm of Israel’s overseas intelligence service from 1989 to 1996 was recently interviewed by the Times of Israel:

The United States and Europe are far more prepared to confront terrorism since the attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September 2001, Shavit said.

“I do not believe that global terrorism can execute an operation on the scale of the 9/11 attacks,” he said. “Many things have changed in the United States, Europe, and the rest of the free world, both with regards to preventative and defensive measures and with regards to the development of offensive counter-terrorism doctrines.”

Following 9/11, Shavit founded Athena, a company which advises countries on issues of homeland security, intelligence gathering, and counter-terrorism. He maintains the position of CEO in the company.

If international terrorist groups were free to plan and execute attacks before 9/11, today they invest over 50 percent of their time worrying about their own survival, he claimed.

“The fact of the matter is that since 9/11 they haven’t repeated an attack of similar magnitude, and it’s not for lack of trying.”

Source:  Times of Israel

Tonight Rosh Hashanah begins a period of inward reflection – far better than recovering from night before.

Rabbi Samuel Altschul says Jews have had to find humour in dark times. Photo / Natalie Slade

For most of us, the sunset at 6.03pm tonight will be unremarkable. But for the 450 families who make up the Auckland Hebrew Congregation, it will mark the moment when the year 5773 becomes 5774.

The New Year ushered in at midnight on December 31 is a time of revelry. For Jews the world over, Rosh Hashanah (literally “the head of the year”) ushers in a period of inward focus and contemplation.

As darkness falls, Jews, for whom the day begins and ends at sundown, begin Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe – a 10-day period that ends at Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

I knew none of this until last week when I went to see Rabbi Samuel Altschul at the congregation’s central Auckland HQ in Greys Ave. I shudder to think what my late mother, a snobby Anglican who regarded just talking to Catholics as sinful, would have made of it, but the rabbi seemed most happy to see me and if he was alarmed at my ignorance of Judaism, he was far too polite to show it.

Even when I told him that most of what I knew about Judaism I’d picked up from listening to comedians, he seemed unfazed: “We haven’t had much to laugh at through the years,” he said, “and I guess that’s one of the reasons why Jews make such good comedians: we have had to spice up our lives with humour that looks at the dark side of life and then laughs at it.”

“These traditions are very much alive today,” he said, “in the way that we celebrate, the daily remembrances, in everything that we do. I don’t want to trespass on anyone’s territory, but just as the Maori are very attached to their whenua, so the Jews have a spiritual connection to the dirt.”

I would have asked the rabbi how this 5773 years “since the creation of the world” (his words) squared with palaeontology and Darwin, but he saw that one coming.

“We have to understand,” he said, “that all religion is written in a language that man can access. For me there is no conflict between creation and evolution. If God created the laws of physics should he not abide by them?”

I had a sneaking suspicion that this rather avoided the point but I wasn’t about to buy a fight over theology with a man so obviously learned.

On Saturday – the Jewish Sabbath or Shabbat – I was back at the synagogue at the rabbi’s invitation. Garth Cohen, the president of the congregation, greeted me, found me a kippah, or skull cap, to cover my head, and politely put paid to my idea of note-taking in the synagogue. During Shabbat, we are required to neither create nor destroy anything, he explained.

About two dozen, men and women seated apart, were in attendance in the sanctuary for the three hours of prayer, in which the rabbi chanted prescribed portions of the Torah – the entire thing is read over the course of each year. At one point, the exquisite sacramental version, hand-inscribed on calfskin scroll, was taken from the cabinet, called an ark, and unrolled on a high desk, to which men from the congregation were summoned to read.

I was struck by the mixture of solemn liturgy and casual conversation – the men who talked to me did not use hushed tones and the rabbi broke off prayers to speak directly to individuals. More than anything it seemed like the gathering of a community in which ritual was the medium rather than the aim.

Tonight and tomorrow and in the days to come, that sanctuary will be packed, the rabbi told me, because new year is “a time of the year to refocus”.

“You open up the ledger and look at your actions for the past year. Is there somebody you need to apologise to? Is there something that you could have done better? Where can you improve yourself?”

I can’t help feeling it’s a more useful undertaking than nursing a hangover.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Peter Calder is a freelance journalist

Source:  NZ Herald 4/9/2013