Antisemitism, fear and political correctness continue to drive the “peace process”

They drive it like drunk hippie motorists racing toward a cliff.

Which is Israel?

This article at CIF Watch provides a partial explanation of the causes: perspectives chosen by media are important in forming popular opinion. The Guardian, published in the UK, makes

a conscious choice to remove as much context as possible to depict the Israel-Palestinian relationship, firstly, as entirely conflictual. Whenever do we hear of the many collaborative projects, or the Israeli aid work in the Territories or the health care available to Palestinians in Israeli hospitals? Secondly it is projected as the greatest conceivable imbalance. One side has all the power imaginable, the other side is utterly disempowered.

And thirdly, it is simplistically but seductively presented as white hat versus black hat, or rather, white race against black, or at least brown. The Israelis are depicted as Westerners and so metaphorically white (what a mutation – from swarthy Semites to Nordic Aryans in just two generations). Meanwhile the Palestinians, being Arabs, must be metaphorically a “brown” people. And so we are left with an ugly narrative of racial supremacism, provoking a delicious frisson of outrage among viewers and readers. [Emphasis added.]

Finally, the relationship is stripped of all historical context. Cruel Goliath just woke up one day and decided to occupy and oppress his poor downtrodden neighbour. First of all, to steal his land and then, who knows, to drive him out completely. In this framing the Palestinian “cause” is quite simply freedom and any means of throwing off the oppressor’s yoke is justified, even the most violent. [Emphasis added.]

But let’s try looking at the whole painting in its regional context. The Guardian-BBC could frame this Middle East conflict as that of a tiny country which has had to fight for its survival in three wars of aggression and has been subjected to 65 years of ferocious terrorism, but which miraculously continues to flourish as a democracy with full respect for the rule of law – and all this in a region brimming with violence, tyranny and hate. In this framing, we would require an exchange of hats. Israel is engaged in defensive resistance against enemies who wish to destroy her simply because she is different; she is democratic – dangerously contagious – she is modern and above all she is not Arab-Muslim. In this framing it is no longer clear quite who is the Goliath but it’s quite clear who is the bully and who the victim. And in an Arab Middle East where not only Jews but also the Kurds and Christians are all persecuted victims of Arab-Muslim rejectionism of the “other”, it becomes clear that it isn’t Israel who should be in the UN dock for apartheid racism. [Emphasis added.]

Or we might try a third framing. The Palestinians and their cause are stoked and stroked and embraced by the big power players in the region, Iran, Syria, Turkey and the Gulf States, for the most cynical of self-serving reasons. Firstly, to bolster their soft-power prestige in the Arab world, and secondly to distract the internal populations from the humiliations they suffer at the hands of their rulers. The real Middle-Eastern conflict, as is now becoming clear, is between Shia-dominated Iran, plus its Syrian puppet, and the rest of the Sunni-dominated Arab world. The Palestinians are a very useful pawn in this game. And note that this support is never for a reasonable negotiated peace with Israel. Instead the Palestinians are spurred on to seek some improbable military victory in which Israel is brought to its knees or, better still, every last Jew is driven from the Middle East. Make no mistake, both Sunnis and Shias are happy to fight Israel to the last drop of Palestinian blood and the last thing they want to see is peace. This is a rather different Palestinian “cause” from the one sold daily by the BBC and Guardian. [Emphasis added.]

A bit more history

Here’s a video, apparently narrated by Bill Whittle, about the history of Israel and “Palestine.”

Here’s a satirical video by Andrew Klavan. It also points to history and suggests a “one state solution” — make the entire region Jewish.

It’s good that Mr. Klavan was jesting about his “one state solution.” The obvious problem is that a Jewish nation would try desperately to be free and democratic, along the lines of Israel. Vastly outnumbered by Arabs, with their long history of hatred toward Jews and what we refer to as freedom, the Arab majority would kill it quickly by voting to expel the Jews and restore Arab norms of “democracy” and “freedom.”

Why do the Guardian, BBC and others support Palestinians and despise Israelis?

Are the Guardian and BBC knowingly complicit in the efforts noted above at the CIF Watch article, or are political correctness and its close companion, antisemitism, the principal bases for their mode of “reporting?” Might fear of Islamists, who bring destruction and little else wherever they go, also be part of the problem? The questions are worth pondering. As the UK becomes increasingly concerned about Islamic immigration and Islamic efforts to dictate what happens there, will even the Guardian, BBC and their ilk awaken?

How about much of Europe and the United States? My friend NEO at Nebraska Energy Observer wrote an article titled Political Correctness and the Death of Europe. It’s well worth reading the entire piece, but here are a few excerpts:

It seems that ‘political correctness’ now holds sway, and the mark of that is that the truth is suppressed, as it affects certain groups in society, these groups all seem to be affiliated with the far left (often inexplicably, at least on the surface, like Islamo-fascists). If you study them you will begin to see similarities but most don’t.

I think we all know the old adage Know thy enemy, what it warns of is not speaking of the problems of our societies, and that can be fatal. [Emphasis in original.]

. . . .

It is simply unacceptable for a free people to tolerate that the information flowing to them is censored. That way lies a soft (actually not very soft) tyranny, and the devolution of society to somewhere in the neighborhood of the twelfth century. [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

As with all bullies, and in truth that is all they are, they prey upon the (physically) weakest amongst us. That is usually our women and girls, and as it always has been, rape is the method of control, because of the devastating effects on the victim of the crime.

But if no one cares about the victims, it lead the perpetrators to continue and that is what we are seeing these days in Europe. Can it be stopped? of course it can. All that is required is for society to “man-up” and protect itself, it’s something we have done for thousands millions of years, but it seems we no longer do.

We Americans have often said that we are Europe, refined, and in many ways that is true, we are the descendants of those with the guts to come here (mostly voluntarily) and build a ‘New Europe’ and we have done well. But we are going down the same path, and unless you want to see your wife, your sister, and your daughter, wearing the hijab and cowering in front of men (really overgrown boys) you had best start to take a man’s role in the world. Because the problems of Oslo, Stockholm, and yes, even London will soon be in New York as well. [Emphasis added.]

An article posted today at PJ Tatler titled Confirmed: U.S. Chief Facilitator of Christian Persecution notes that

[E]ven the most misinformed mainstream-media-watching American today knows that the so-called “Arab Spring,” which was hailed to justify U.S. support for “rebels” of all stripes—in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood (which months ago destroyed some 80 churches); in Libya, al-Qaeda, which has turned Benghazi into a terror zone; and now the “freedom fighters” in Syria—is not what it was touted to be.

In other words, at this point, whenever the U.S. intervenes in an Islamic nation, Islamists come to power. This is well demonstrated by the other three nations to which the U.S. brought “democracy” and where Christian minorities suffer “extreme persecution” . . . . [Emphasis added.]

Israel is not yet an Islamic nation. Even so, the Obama Administration continues to intervene there to help make her one.

Who wants peace?

An article at The Gatestone Institute reported efforts to disrupt meetings between Israeli and Palestinian peace activists. A meeting was to be held in Ramallah, but was promptly disrupted to the point that the meeting had to be abandoned. A meeting was then attempted in Jerusalem but had to be abandoned, for the same reason.

Israeli peace activists who arrived in Ramallah recently were forced to leave the city under Palestinian Authority [PA] police protection.

The activists were escorted out of Ramallah in police vans after Palestinian protesters attacked the hotel where a “peace conference” between Israelis and Palestinians was taking place.

The event in Ramallah was organized by Minds of Peace, a not-for-profit organization whose mission is “Grassroots Peace Making and Public Diplomacy: A novel approach to the peaceful resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”

Although the event in Ramallah was supposed to last for two days, during which Israelis and Palestinians would talk about peace and coexistence, as soon as the conference began at City Inn Hotel in Ramallah, scores of Palestinian activists arrived at the scene, chanting slogans against the presence of Israelis in Ramallah.

. . . .

“Israelis out, out! Palestine is Arab, from the sea to the river,” shouted one a female protester. “This land is not for sale!” shouted another protester, as he tried to force his way into the conference hall. [Emphasis added.]

Palestinian policemen who were rushed to the scene were unable to stop the protesters from damaging windows and doors as they hurled stones at the hotel.

The protesters also hung a large poster at the entrance to the hotel declaring, “Normalization [with Israel] is an act of treason.” [Emphasis added.]

The protest finally forced the organizers of the conference to call it off, with the Israelis quickly leaving Ramallah out of concern for their safety.

. . . .

The following day, January 9, the Israeli and Palestinian activists tried to meet at the Ambassador Hotel in Jerusalem. But here, too, they were confronted by dozens of Palestinian “anti-normalization” activists who forced the Israelis and Palestinians to leave the hotel in a humiliating manner.

Amal Obaidi, one of the protesters, said she was opposed to the “peace” conference because it represented a policy of “surrender and normalization with Israeli occupation.” She further explained, “We reject any normalization meeting. Jerusalem is an Arab city and it will remain so.”

This was not the first time that Palestinians expressed their opposition to meetings between Israelis and Palestinians. “Anti-normalization” activists have succeeded in foiling many other meetings, especially those that are held in cities and towns under the control of the PA.

That is why the Israeli and Palestinian “peace activists” have been forced to hold their meetings in secret locations or in different countries around the world.

There are a number of disturbing elements in the story of the “anti-normalization” advocates.

First, the protesters are acting against Israelis who openly support the Palestinian issue and are completely opposed to the policies of the current Israeli government. In other words, the Palestinians are “spitting in the face” of those Israelis who support their demands and are prepared to put their lives at risk by entering Ramallah to talk peace. [Emphasis added.]

Second, most of the activists who are protesting against such meetings are affiliated, in way or another, with the same Palestinian Authority, which is conducting official peace talks with Israel under the auspices of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. So why don’t the “anti-normalization” folks also turn out against the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah? Most probably because they are scared of being arrested or harassed by Palestinian security forces. Moreover, many of the activists are on the payroll of the PA and are afraid of losing their salaries. [Emphasis added.]

Third, there is the troubling role played by some Palestinian journalists in organizing, and later reporting about, Israeli-Palestinian meetings. The protesters who foiled the “peace” conference in Ramallah and Jerusalem said they had been tipped off by Palestinian journalists who urged them to take action against the meetings. [Emphasis added.]

Fourth, not a single Palestinian official has dared to condemn the assaults on the Israeli and Palestinian peace activists. Even the PA leadership, whose representatives often say (in English) that they are in favor of such meetings, has yet to denounce the actions and threats of the “anti-normalization” activists. [Emphasis added.]

If fifteen Israelis and an equal number of Palestinians are unable even to talk about peace, what would happen if and when PA President Mahmoud Abbas signs a peace agreement with Israel? Might he, too, find himself being escorted out of Ramallah under police protection for daring to talk peace with Israel? [Emphasis added.]

It’s probably worth noting that Arab members of the Israeli Knesset, while spouting hatred of Israel’s “racist” and other “apartheid” policies, do not want their own parts of Israel to become parts of Palestine. As I noted in an article titled The Middle East Clusterduck and Obama – Kerry Myopia,

Arabs living in Israel, while degenerating Israel daily, generally have no desire to live in a new Palestinian state in Israel or, for that matter, in a Palestinian state elsewhere. As noted in a Gatestone Institute article titled Israeli Arabs: We Do Not Want to Live in Palestinian State,

Renewed talk of land swaps between Israel and a future Palestinian state has left many Israeli Arabs worried about losing their status as citizens of Israel.

According to the Israeli daily Ma’ariv, Israel has proposed to the Americans transferring Israeli Arab communities to the Palestinian Authority as part of a land swap that would place Jewish settlements in the West Bank under Israeli sovereignty. [Emphasis added.]

The proposal means that some 300,000 Israeli Arabs would be allowed to stay in their villages in the “triangle” area along the border with the West Bank. However, these citizens would find themselves living under the jurisdiction of a Palestinian state.[Emphasis added.]

The new-old proposal has been strongly rejected by leaders of the Israeli Arabs, who expressed outrage over the idea.

It was hard this week to find even one Israeli Arab who publicly supported the proposal.

“This is an imaginary proposal that relates to the Arabs as if they were chess pieces that could be moved around according to the wish of the players,” said Ahmed Tibi, an Arab member of the Knesset.

Another Arab Knesset member, Afu Ighbarriyeh, said, “Citizens of a democratic state are not tools or hostages in the hands of their government.” [Emphasis added.]

Considering the source, the reference to Israel as a “democratic state” is an illuminating choice of words.

Both Tibi and Ighbarriyeh are from towns in the triangle area; Taybeh and Umm al-Fahm.

But what the Arab Knesset members are not saying openly is that they do not want to wake up in the morning and discover that they are citizens of a Palestinian state. It is much easier for them to accuse Israel of racism than to admit that they do not want to be part of a Palestinian state. [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

Professor Smooha said that Israeli Arabs are interested in receiving the benefits that the state provides them – stability, democracy, services and so on. The Arab leadership is more critical of Israel than the Arab public, which is “much more pragmatic than their leaders,” he explained. [Emphasis added.]

The Knesset has 120 members, 12 of whom are Arabs. Some of the Arab parliamentarians have over the past two decades acted and spoken in a way that has caused damage to the interests of the 1.5 million Arab citizens of Israel. [Emphasis added.]

They are first and foremost responsible for radicalizing a large number of Israeli Arabs and turning them against the state.

These parliamentarians have, in fact, spent more time defending the interests of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip than those of their voters.

A Knesset member who openly identifies with Fatah or Hamas or Hezbollah is responsible for the situation that many Israeli Jews today see Israeli Arabs as a “fifth column” and an “enemy from within.”

These Knesset members are fully aware that they would lose most of their privileges under most Arab regimes — the real reason why they are strongly opposed to the latest proposal. [Emphasis added.]

The Palestinians have their own parliament in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But this parliament, known as the Palestinian Legislative Council, has been paralyzed since Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007. [Emphasis added.]

In most Arab countries, parliament members who dare to criticize their rulers often find themselves sitting at home or behind bars. [Emphasis added.]

If the Arab Knesset members are so worried about becoming citizens of a Palestinian state, they should be working toward integration into, and not separation from, Israel. The Arab parliamentarians need to listen more to what their constituents are telling them and not to the voices of Fatah and Hamas.

Assuming a modicum of sanity, why should Israeli Arabs want to live in a Palestinian state?

Why, again assuming a modicum of sanity, should anyone, other than a ranking member of its government, want to live in a Palestinian state? Perhaps an assumption of sanity is unwarranted.

Most Palestinians, and probably to an even greater extent their leaders, do not want peace with Israel unless defined as the death or at least expulsion of all Jews. They want all of the pieces of Israel until it’s all theirs — preferably all at once. The Kerry – Obama pieces for peace plan is not viable.

Here’s a link to a satirical article I wrote in December of 2012, when Palestinian rockets were striking Israel daily. In it, I substituted la Raza activists in Mexico firing rockets at El Paso, Texas and demanding return of U.S. settlements in Texas and elsewhere. Prime Minister Netanyahu, when he had ceased laughing uncontrollably and was able to speak, offered suggestions to President Obama paralleling the Obama Administration’s directives to Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, speaking from Tel Aviv, expressed solidarity with the United States while wiping tears from his eyes. (NOTE: Earlier reports had suggested that the tears had been shed during uncontrollable fits of laughter when PM Netanyahu heard the news. However, an aide to the PM brushed off the suggestion: “The PM laughs only at stuff he thinks is really funny.”)

PM Netanyahu did not offer the United States any of Israel’s WMDs (Weapons Minimizing Destruction) because Israel recently had to use some and can’t spare any. Instead he suggested that the United States should halt construction in all occupied territories (including not only in Texas but also in California, Arizona and New Mexico) as the best road map to peace. He noted Israel’s smashing successes in negotiating with her peace partner, Hamas, following Israeli acquiescence in similar demands suggestions from United States and other bastions of freedom, democracy and peace around the world.

Alas, President Obama did not follow Prime Minister Netanyahu’s advice. Why not? Does President Obama despise Israel even more than the despised the pre-Obama United States? Or does He, like the Arab members of the Knesset, fear what would happen to Him were the United States taken over by Islamists “right of return” folks from Mexico and elsewhere?