Yesh Din: Justice for All?

More on the stench known as Yesh Din. Via NGO Monitor:

• Yesh Din, an Israeli NGO founded by members of Machsom Watch, claims to monitor legal procedures applied to Palestinian complaints against Israelis – both civilians and members of the security forces in the West Bank – in Israeli civilian courts. It also follows proceedings against Palestinian defendants in military courts.


• Yesh Din is funded by the European Union, the Irish, Dutch, German and British Foreign Offices, the New Israel Fund, the Open Society Institute, and private donors and foundations. As with other European-funded political NGOs based in Israel, Yesh Din’s agenda is one-sided, and ignores Palestinian violations of Israeli human rights, including terrorism.


• Their main activities consist of soliciting reports from Palestinians regarding alleged “criminal behavior by Israeli civilians”, and publishing reports on these topics. In these reports, many of the claims are subjective and cannot be verified.


• Reports generally omit the context of terror and use pseudo-legal human rights terminology and “apartheid” rhetoric to condemn Israeli policy.


• The appearance of academic methods notwithstanding, the methodological problems in the reports reduce Yesh Din’s credibility. In its report on military courts, conclusions are based on a small, unrepresentative sample of 800 cases, out of 42,000 indictment and arrest hearings conducted in the military courts in 2006 alone.

Who is Richard Falk?

Another Jewish schmuck. I would like to know why Richard Falk has fallen for the trumped-up concoction of superstitions and deceit which is Islam. He can't be too bright if he doesn't know that Islam, at its core, is lethally militaristic and institutionalizes homicide. Via JPost.

The United Nations Human Rights Council on Wednesday appointed American Jewish law professor Richard A. Falk - who has compared Israel to the Nazis - as special investigator on Israeli actions in the territories for a six-year term.

Falk, who formerly taught international law at Princeton University, replaces South African professor John Dugard, who was an expert on apartheid. Dugard leaves his post in June after seven years. He made waves when he compared Israeli actions in the territories with apartheid and colonialism.

Falk, in his academic writing, has already stated that a Palestinian holocaust was in the making. [Smooth: Yeah, Falk, and its their own doing. Arabs wanted war, then they should expect the consequence. I hope they're enjoying their nabka.].

Yitzhak Levanon, ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, spoke against Falk's appointment in an address to the council on Wednesday.

"In a recent article, [Falk] stated that he did not think it to be "an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with the criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity," Levanon said.

"He has taken part in a UN fact-finding mission which determined that suicide bombings were a valid method of 'struggle,'" Levanon said.

"He has disturbingly charged Israel with 'genocidal tendencies,' and accused it of trying to achieve security through 'state terrorism,'" Levanon said.

"Someone who has publicly and repeatedly stated such views cannot possibly be considered independent, impartial or objective,"Levanon said.

Who is Avi Lewis?

Avi Lewis, a Jew, is the son of Stephen Lewis, Canada's former ambassador to the United Nations and former head of Ontario's socialist New Democratic Party. His mother, Michelle Landsberg, is a longtime columnist with Canada's largest liberal daily, the Toronto Star. His grandfather, Stephen Lewis, once led the NDP party on the national level. He is married to radical author Naomi Klein.

And now, having been a former host with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Lewis has joined Al-Jazeera, the Middle East broadcaster that serves as a leading purveyor of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism.

Lewis' main claim to fame (or, rather, infamy) was an interview he conducted with former Dutch parliamentarian and author Ayaan Hirsi Ali in June 2007. The segment quickly made Lewis, and by extension the CBC, a worldwide laughingstock. But instead of ending his broadcasting career, that interview may have served as Avi Lewis's inadvertent "audition" for Al-Jazeera.

As Kathy Shaidle writes in FrontPage Magazine, Avi Lewis has now "gone to work for a network that actively supports the destruction of the culture that made his career possible."

Click here to read all about Al-Jazeera's rising Jewish star.

Iraqi TV Debate: Is the Earth Flat?

A debate between an Iraqi "Researcher on Astronomy" and a physicist on Iraqi television. Apparently, this is an important question in the Islamic world.

I must be doing something right

I must be doing something right.

Yesterday, the politically depraved Daily Kos linked here and called this site a right-wing swampland.

Today, the politically depraved Israel-bashing site PhilipWeiss [dot] org, edited by Philip Weiss who himself is a Jew, commanded his readers to praise anti Israel writers, like the Israel-bashing journalist Scott Wilson, who was dissected in my post here. Weiss calls Wilson "noble".

Jews who loathe themselves are deficient. Deficient Jews actually enjoy embracing palestinian arabs and other unevolved cultural groups because it makes them feel better about themselves. Why any human being - a Jew especially - could proclaim his support for an Islamic movement whose goal is to annihilate all the world's Jews, is hard to answer. It's shocking to the normal observer, this behavior, that a Jew could take such an anti-Israeli anti-Jewish position. That a Jew like Weiss would, seems all the more astounding - and attention-grabbing.

Philip Weiss says this about himself:

"I know that some Jewish readers will say, [I] care about the opinions of a Palestinian graduate student and an Irish atheist more than [I] do the opinion of [my] coreligionists. They are right."

Why are we right, Weiss? Why does Philip Weiss frame himself as a "progressive"? Why doesn't he just wear Elect Palestinian Arabs for President buttons? He should just be honest.

The substance of what Philip Weiss has to say - the conduct of Jews who despise their own people - spans the full spectrum of political depravity.

Paul Bogdanor says that:

There are anti-Zionist Jews who peddle vicious libels about Israel. There are anti-Zionist Jews who compare the Jewish state with Nazi Germany. There are anti-Zionist Jews who support the PLO, Hamas or Hizbullah. There are anti-Zionist Jews who collaborate with anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers. There are anti-Zionist Jews who defend suicide bombings, anti-Zionist Jews who support the destruction of Israel, and – incredibly – there are even anti-Zionist Jews who advocate measures against other Jews that could plausibly be described as genocidal.

It must be noted, with all due caution, that some anti-Zionists appear to harbor genocidal intentions toward their fellow Jews.

Decades ago Arie Bober, leader of the Israeli communist Matzpen party, boasted of his support for an "Arab revolution" that would either split the Jewish workers from Zionism or slaughter three million Israelis in "another Holocaust."

Today we can detect similar ideas in the writings of Norman Finkelstein, who has invoked the destruction of Japanese cities in World War II as precedent for holding the Israeli people "accountable for the crimes of the Israeli state"; he also regards hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers, including pregnant women and helpless invalids, as "legitimate targets for armed resistance."

Competing in his genocidal frenzy was the Israeli leftist Yigal Tumarkin, a founder of Peace Now, who disclosed: "When I see the black-coated haredim with the children they spawn, I can understand the Holocaust."

And if these outpourings seem to be the products of deranged minds, let us not forget that even the impeccably liberal Tony Judt displays a striking indifference to the practical consequences of his proposals for the people of Israel. For Professor Judt, and for other advocates of the "one-state solution," it is perfectly acceptable to leave millions of Jews helpless before the armies and suicide bombers of the Middle East ("Things change"), just so long as faculty dinners and cocktail parties are no longer spoiled by the latest controversy over Israeli military tactics.

Such are the ideas exposed to the light of day in The Jewish Divide Over Israel. Our book's contributors – who range from left-wing supporters of Peace Now to right-wing advocates of peace through strength – are united around one principle: whatever their views on the future of Israel, they maintain that the Jewish homeland no more deserves to become a provisional country whose "right to exist" is the subject of legitimate discussion than the Jewish people deserve to be a pariah nation whose survival is conditional on the approval of anti-Semites.

In repudiating the Israel-haters in our ranks, we affirm not only our solidarity with embattled Israeli Jews, but also our own basic self-respect.

Deficient Jews have no self-respect. They are merely self-elected policeman, telling the rest of the world that "Islamic fundamentalism" is a reaction to various factors. Yet before all those factors existed, jihad terror existed. But of course, Weiss and his minions have no idea of that.

Apparently, self-loathing Jews are too busy berating Israel and Jews for defending themselves against "palestinians" to take much notice on how Muslims are reciting from the Koran to justify their murder of "infidels" all around the world.

Currently there are 30 conflicts around the world and 25 of them involve Muslims. If anything, that fact alone deconstructs all other mythologies - for example, "occupation" - as the root cause of Muslim terrorism.

It is time that self-loathing deficient Jews learned that real Jews reject the politics of leftwingers. We reject their views on immigration, culture, religion, ideology, law enforcement, and military strategy.

Self-loathing Jews do not take their proper place in the family of nations. Instead, they will be like hyena, scurrying off into the brush with their tails between their legs, because their apathy and self-loathing placed their fellow Jews into a dangerous, self-imposed ghetto, surrounded by 23 nations of Islamic theocracies and brutal dictatorships, run by racist madmen.

Ron Kuby, Daniel Barenboim, Deborah Fink, Adam Shapiro, George Soros, Stanley Cohen, "Rabbi" David Weiss, are just a sampling of self-loathing Jews especially when it comes to their acknowledgement and pride in being Jewish. Just Google each of them and read what each says about Israel and Jews.

Manfred Gerstenfeld at The Jewish Center for Public Affairs writes:

Anti-Jewish attacks on Israel by Jews are frequently indistinguishable from those by non-Jews. Among the specific aspects in the anti-Israel writings of some Jews are the use of their family's Holocaust experiences, their references to being Jewish, or an association of some kind with Israel. Assaults on Israel and Jews by non-Jews often use statements from Israeli or diaspora Jewish defamers as a legitimization. In order to fight verbal attacks against Israel by Jews more effectively, a much better understanding of their background, motives, and methods is required.

Much of the Jewish world is ignorant of their precious heritage. The results are catastrophic: apathy, shame and self-loathing. If this is indeed a Jewish problem then the siege upon us will not be lifted until we as Jews acknowledge our rightful place in history and correct the mistakes we have made by denying them.

David Landau, editor of Ha'aretz, calls for the rape of Israel

Last Wednesday, New York's Jewish Week, reported that the editor of Israel's self-described "newspaper of record", David Landau, asked the US secretary of state to rape his country and told her that his erotic fantasy is to watch America rape Israel.

CAMERA reports:

At a private meeting of some 20 journalists with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in September, 2007, Ha'aretz Editor David Landau urged the U.S. to "rape" Israel — to force a settlement on the country. In a December 26 story on the incident, Jewish Week editor Gary Rosenblatt quoted Landau saying: "'I told [Rice] that it had always been my wet dream to address the secretary of state' on these vital matters."

Despite expressions of dismay by other commentators -- including Jerusalem Post columnist Isi Leibler, who termed Landau's conduct "unconscionable" and "unacceptable," and leading broadcast and print journalist Ehud Yaari who called the comments "embarrassing" -- Landau told Rosenblatt he is actually pleased with his performance.

The Ha'aretz editor's objectionable statements are indicative of a striking lack of judgement generally by an individual who has also refused to correct serious factual errors in his newspaper, falsehoods that cast Israel as racist, oppressive and unjust in its treatment of Arabs.

In response to repeated calls by CAMERA for redress of inaccurate reporting, Landau has taken the highly unprofessional measure of insisting his staff not address the organization's inquiries regardless of the merit of the issue.

Together with Ha'aretz's like-minded publisher, Amos Shocken, Landau has promoted an extreme political position, characterizing Israel as "apartheid" in both the news and editorial pages. Moreover, a number of the paper's contributors go so far as to participate in radical anti-Israel activity outside the country, and figures such as Danny Rubenstein and Gideon Levy denounce Israel in extreme statements at one-sided United Nations meetings.

The promulgation of the apartheid slander, like Landau's comment to Rice, is part of the use of the paper as a tool to cudgel Israel down Ha'aretz's preferred political path.

Readers in Israel and around the globe, as well as other journalists who cite the publication, may want to consider the bizarre views expressed by senior figures guiding the paper and the disconnect with an Israeli mainstream that does not seek to be "raped" but, as with any normal, self-respecting people, seeks an equitable and prudent resolution of a difficult conflict.

David Landau also supports the New Israel Fund, which allocates grants to such anti-Israeli NGOs as Hamoked, I'lam, and Ittijah.

As you might recall, NGOs' promote politically and ideologically motivated anti-Israel agendas and they lend a false credibility to the notion that Palestine is even a real nation. Don't be scammed. NGO's, like the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Ford Foundation, International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) New Israel Fund, Miftah, Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Physicians for Human Rights - Israel (PHR-I), LAW, Christian Aid, and the Advocacy Project each collect funds for a variety of projects and areas from generous donors, philanthropic institutions, and government budgets, but they themselves are not democratic institutions and have no democratic accountability. An NGO is only accountable to its particular funding organizations and members.

Click here to read more about the New Israel Fund. Click here to read on NGO's and Islamic NGOs. Click here to read more about David Landau and if you are a subscriber to the print edition, send a note to Ha'aretz and request that your subscription be cancelled at once.

Video: Who is Yael Korin?

Yael Korin is the co-founder of the Los Angeles branch of Women in Black and is an ex-Israeli Jew working for the destruction of Israel. Yael Korin is a pathologist at the medical school of UCLA who believes the canard that Jews have no right to live in Israel. She is associated with Greta Berlin, another she-pig at Women in Black, and as Discover the Network writes,

"...Yael Korin... joins other fanatically anti-Israel ex-Israelis, including such people as Avi Shlaim in Britain; Gabriel Piterberg (also at UCLA); Zalman Amit in Canada; and Yigal Arens, a Los Angeles extremist and son of Israel's one-time Defense Minister Gilad Atzmon. "

These vermin seek to see their native homeland destroyed and replaced by an Arab majority.

Yael Korin may as well be a Muslim, because her hatred for Israel runs so deep and her lies are so vast.

Yael Korin is allegedly a child of Holocaust survivors, so she also brought shame to her parents as well as to the nation of Israel.

Watch her video here at a speech in California. Listen to Yael Korin's lies. If you weren't able to catch them all, I identify the mendacity below:



Yael Korin neglects to mention that Jews were also residents of the region of Palestine and were thrown out of their homes by Arabs.

Yael Korin neglects to mention that Palestinian Arabs do not have an absolute, natural right to self-determination without the reciprocal absolute natural right of the Palestinian Jews.

Yael Korin neglects to mention that Palestinian Jews had a prior right to create a national existence in the land of the Mandate of Palestine as was promised to them in several documents including the Balfour Declaration and the San Remo resolution.

Yael Korin neglects to mention that Palestinian Jews have the right to preserve themselves by defending themselves against a culture who wants to commit genocide against them.

Yael Korin was silent when Arabs forced hundreds of thousands of Jews out of their homes in 1948.

Yael Korin neglects to mention that when the West Bank and Gaza were "occupied" by Egypt and Jordan, from 1947 thru 1967, the palestinian leadership had no complaint about any "alien occupation " and expressed no desire for self-determination. There was no movement toward a palestinian state when Gaza was under the control of Egypt and the West Bank under Jordan. Jordan didn't give up its territorial claims until 1988.

Yael Korin neglects to mention that Fatah was founded in 1964 by Arafat; unless causality has no meaning, the resistance to Israel was born with no reference to 1967 or "ocupation", but, rather, with Israel's birth in 1948 and with the return of Jews to their homeland in the 19th century. Jews were living in Israel for 3000 years and the legitimate and sovereign nation of Israel is a resturn to their homeland, not an invasion, as Yael Korin and her minions claim. It only makes sense considering the archaeology, our Patriarch's tombs, our Matriarch's tombs, and most of all our Holy Temple, which Muslim supremacists usurped out from under the Jewish people just like they did to Christian chruches throught out the region. Talk about land grabs.

For Muslims and their apologists like Yael Korin, history starts anew each day.

For more on Yael Korin, see this.

12 Jewish Democrats back Palestinian Authority funding

From JTA:

Twelve Jewish Democrats are among 135 U.S. Congress members urging increased assistance to palestinians.

Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), the Jewish chairman of the House of Representatives' Middle East subcommittee, and Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.), an Arab American, initiated a letter sent Monday to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that argued for more funding.

The letter said the increased aid would be critical to bolstering Palestinian moderates now that Rice is convening renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

The vast majority of signatories were Democrats, and included top Jewish members such as Reps. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Henry Waxman (D-Calif.). Fewer than 20 Republicans signed.

The Jewish groups that led the lobbying effort for the letter were dovish: the Reform movement, Americans for Peace Now, the Israel Policy Forum and Brit Tzedek v'Shalom.

What is Machsom Watch?

The she-pigs at Machsom Watch love to tour Hebron and other parts of the legitimate and sovereign nation of Israel with groups of Israelis and non-Israelis, against the Jews of Hebron by giving false, warped presentations. Furthermore, the she-pigs at Machsom Watch act with the cooperation of Palestinian interlopers and marauders in order to undermine the operations of the Israel Defence Forces, whose purpose is to defend the citizens of Israel against palestinian murderers. In fact, the actions perpetrated by the she-pigs at Machsom Watch are racist actions that aim to bring about the ethnic cleansing of Hebron of all of its Jewish citizens.

Ehud Olmert, acting prime minister of Israel who was never elected, who is responsible for the carnage at Amona, who is responsible for uprooting Jewish families from their homes, well, his wife, Aliza, is a charter member of 'Women In Black', an organization of Arabs and Jews who support Arab takeover of Israel. His son Shaul belongs to the extreme left group, 'Yesh G'vul'. He was arrested as a deserter from the Israeli Army. He now lives in New York. His son Ariel never even served in the Israeli Army. He lives in Paris, and his daughter Donna, a self-professed Lesbian, is one of the she-pigs at Machsom Watch.

The she-pigs at Machsom Watch monitor and disseminate reports on Israeli soldiers at checkpoints, with the ultimate aim of “ending the occupation.” Machsom Watch publications regularly omit the context of terror and employ human rights terminology, “apartheid” rhetoric and emotive and politically charged language that contribute to the demonization of Israel. In many cases, their allegations are either inaccurate or unverifiable. Machsom Watch is funded by private donors, the New Israel Fund and the EU.

Background from NGO Monitor:

Machsom Watch (also known as “Checkpoint Watch” / “Women’s Fund for Human Rights” / “Women for Human Rights” / “Women Against the Occupation” / “Women of the Checkpoints”) was established in January 2001 “in response to repeated reports in the press about human rights abuses of Palestinians crossing army and border police checkpoints”. Its stated goals are “to monitor the behavior of soldiers and police at checkpoints; to ensure that the human and civil rights of Palestinians attempting to enter Israel are protected; to record and report the results of our observations to the widest possible audience, from the decision-making level to that of the general public.” On the New Israel Fund website, Machsom Watch claims another main goal of "end[ing] the Occupation."

This project has the potential to promote good practice at checkpoints, and increase awareness of the complexities of balancing Palestinian rights to dignity and freedom of movement, with Israeli rights to life and security. However, Machsom Watch's strong political agenda and its distorted approach to and portrayal of events at the checkpoints, undermine its credibility, and reveal its core anti-Israel ideology.

Machsom Watch was founded by three Israeli women: Ronnee Jaeger, a Canadian social worker formerly active in Friends of Pioneering Israel and New Jewish Agenda; lesbian Adi Kuntsman a 1990 immigrant from the former Soviet Union, who is currently pursuing a Ph.D in sociology and gender studies at Lancaster University; and UK-born Yehudit Keshet, who has been involved in a variety of groups, from the Communist Party to Bat Shalom.

Membership in Machsom Watch is open exclusively to Israeli women. The organization acknowledges its “definite bias towards mature, professional women”. Although it claims to be “politically pluralistic”, “opposition to the occupation” is a prerequisite for membership. According to its website, Machsom Watch has 400 members throughout Israel.

Description of Activities:

Machsom Watch members spend 3-4 hour shifts in small groups, at checkpoints throughout the West Bank, observing the interaction between Israeli soldiers or border police and Palestinians. They often document their observations as photographs or videos, and occasionally intervene with an Israeli officer on behalf of Palestinians. After each shift, they compose reports in Hebrew and English that are distributed to Knesset members, military commanders, High Court judges, the State Comptroller, other human rights organizations and the public. Machsom Watch’s website also features an exhibition of photographs taken at the checkpoints (see below for an analysis of the manipulation of these images to misrepresent events).

Funding:

Machsom Watch does not publicize its sources of funding nor its total budget, but accepts donations through the New Israel Fund, which acts as a fiscal agent, administering contributions from external sources and individual donors. The New Israel Fund also donates to Machsom Watch directly, though it refuses to reveal the sum[1]. This organization, whose stated mission is to fight for civil and human rights, promote religious tolerance and pluralism, as well as close the social and economic gaps in Israeli society, often funds politicized NGOs which fuel the conflict or which seek to end the status of Israel as a Jewish state. In 2005, Machsom Watch received €60,000 from the EU, as part of the “Partnership for Peace” program.

Highly Politicized Agenda:

Machsom Watch reports often deviate away from describing events at the checkpoints. Through omission of context, use of pseudo-legal terminology and emotive language, many reports become a platform for the author's radical political views.

Writing of the targeted killing of terrorists, on August 31 – September 6, 2003, Machsom Watch celebrates the “fortunately failed” attempts that week to assassinate Hamas leaders Sheikh Ahmad Yassin and Isma’il Haniyeh (both senior terrorists responsible for a number of suicide bombings, according to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs). The report lists the number and ages of the Palestinian casualties of these operations, but omits Hamas’ ongoing terror war against Israelis, and describes IDF actions as "revenge." In another report, “Invisible Prisoners” from April 2007, Machsom Watch describes the Palestinians as
“victims of collective punishment meted out in a complex scheme of oppression which is typical of tyrannical regimes elsewhere in the world. How did it happen that the Jewish nation, itself the eternal victim of persecution for generation upon generation, dreamt up and created such a dismal reality in the back yard of its own state?”

Such statements implicitly draw a parallel between Israel and Nazi Germany or Apartheid South Africa, demonizing Israel with no factual basis.

Omission of Context:

Machsom Watch reports regularly omit the context of terror and claim that the presence of checkpoints is arbitrary, unrelated to the security situation and created solely to disrupt the Palestinians’ daily lives, hinder their business and humiliate them. In her report “Systematic Abuse by Administrative Means: A Matter of Policy?”, Tsilli Goldenberg claims that “this entire arrangement [of checkpoints] bears no connection whatsoever to the security of Israeli citizens.”[2] Such statements are misleading, based entirely on the Palestinian perspective and not supported by fact. Don Morris of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East explains in his January 23, 2005 article, “Understanding Israeli Checkpoints,” that checkpoints constitute a necessary and effective measure for preventing terrorists from attacking civilians inside Israel. Prior to the outbreak of violence, there were no checkpoints and Palestinians could move around Israel and the West Bank freely. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in the first 6 months of 2005, "389 Palestinians, among these potential suicide bombers… wanted terrorists and those suspected of terror activities," were apprehended at checkpoints. This crucial security aspect is ignored by Machsom Watch.

In its December 2006 report, Machsom Watch accuses Israel of implementing “draconian regulations,” including the law prohibiting the transportation of West Bank Palestinians in Israeli cars. The report omits the fact that this rule was issued following several instances of Palestinian terrorists using Israeli drivers to cross checkpoints, enter Israel and carry out terror attacks, according to the Shin Bet Security Services and the IDF. Although this explanation appears as the rationale in the text of the law which Machsom Watch cited in its report, the NGO's analysis completely ignores the terror threat and criticizes Israel for this new measure.[3]

Pseudo-Legal Terminology:

Machsom Watch members routinely employ the rhetoric of human rights law in order to condemn Israel. In her article “Checkpoint witnesses” that appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, Amelia Thomas quotes Adi Dagan, Machsom Watch’s spokesperson, who claims that the system of checkpoints “violates international law.”[4] Furthermore, in her article “On Founding Machsom Watch,” Yehudit Kirstein-Keshet refers to “abuse” and “human rights violations at checkpoints”, and accuses Israel of “collective punishment, pure racism, violation of freedom of worship, and cruelty”.[5] These terms are not defined, nor applied universally to the situation. They are merely employed to provide a veneer of legality to Machsom Watch's political position against Israel.

Similarly, Machsom Watch’s December 2006 report begins with the subtitle “Apartheid?” but no evidence is provided for the existence of such a state in Israel. Phrases such “the apartheid roads and checkpoints” merely serve as slogans, to draw a parallel between Israel and Apartheid South Africa and to promote the “Durban Strategy”.

Emotive Language:

Machsom Watch reports frequently employ emotionally charged language in order to demonize all Israeli actions at checkpoints. In her February 24, 2006 article, “Where Do you Draw the Line?” Esti Tsal’s states: “Now I see sharp and clear. The sight is anything but simple. It's cruel. … you're in another world. Neglected, tense, unstable. Lawless. With a different body language of dominator and dominated." In a 2003 report, “Systematic Abuse by Administrative Means: A Matter of Policy?" one mention is made of the "suicide bomb attack" which prompted additional security at the checkpoint, but such factors are overwhelmingly ignored in the nearly 4000 word piece, which includes the description that, "all of the stories speak of humiliation and simple harassment, of the indescribable suffering of an entire population that wants to live its life with dignity and is unable to do so."[6] Furthermore in the summary of their observations for July 2007, Machsom Watch members cynically describe the Bethlehem checkpoint as a site enfolded by “Orwellian language,” with its negative evocation of an invisible controller. This interpretation ignores the fact that decreased interaction with the Israeli soldiers has been identified as an improvement toward a more dignified and efficient way of running checkpoints.

Affiliation with Other NGOs:

Machsom Watch is a member of the “Coalition of Women for Peace”, which conducts highly politicized campaigns to further its stated goal of "support[ing] … human rights and a just peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors.” The first of its nine principles is “an end to the occupation,” but an end to terror does not appear as one of its goals. Machsom Watch members regularly participate in events sponsored by the “Coalition of Women for Peace”, including a 2006 “Call for International actions against the siege on Gaza,” which demanded that “Israel and the international community … respect the political choice of the Palestinian people” and declared that “the siege is sowing anarchy and death in Gaza.” This campaign urged dialogue with Hamas and ignored Palestinian infighting, blaming the internal situation in Gaza entirely on Israel.

Machsom Watch has signed several petitions with the aim of changing Israeli policy. For instance, along with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the Public Committee against Torture in Israel, HaMoked: Center for the Defense of the Individual, Gisha, Physicians for Human Rights and Bimkom Planners for Planning Rights, Machsom Watch signed the petition initiated by Yesh Din on January 7, 2007 against the ban on transporting Palestinians in Israeli vehicles in the West Bank, which was submitted to the Israeli Supreme Court. These NGOs claimed that “the Directive implements an ideology of 'segregation'" and "creates an apartheid regime, as well as a regime of persecution of a national group, both of which constitute international crimes.” However, the context of terror that necessitated this law was overlooked and even denied, as demonstrated by the statement that “the chief purpose of the Directive is to create segregation and discrimination, and not to preserve security.” The negative connotations associated with the term “apartheid” due to its South African origins distort the reality of the situation in Israel, while the use of pseudo-legal terminology to support its case and demonize Israel demonstrates Machsom Watch’s pursuit of the “Durban Strategy.”
In its reports, Machsom Watch takes advantage of the “Halo Effect” (the high regard in which NGOs are held in public opinion), often citing statements made by other politicized NGOs, such as the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR). In turn, other NGOs rely on Machsom Watch’s reports and use its photographs taken at the checkpoints as evidence of Israeli aggression.

Machsom Watch lists several organizations on its “Links” page, including B’Tselem, Adalah, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Gisha. It has also collaborated with lawyers from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) on its latest project dealing with blacklisted Palestinians. NGO Monitor has issued reports on these organizations, detailing their unbalanced, politicized approach to the conflict.
Videos and Photographic Exhibition:

Machsom Watch has a record of deliberately propagating inaccurate information based on visual materials gathered at the checkpoints

On November 9, 2004, a Palestinian man was filmed playing his violin at a checkpoint. Machsom Watch publicized the video in the media, accusing the Israeli soldiers of forcing him to perform in order to humiliate him. It later emerged that he had only been asked to open his violin case (to ensure that it did not contain explosives) and that the Watchers were not close enough to hear the conversation between the soldier and the man.[7] This unscientific interpretation of visual information based on speculations and false assumptions raises questions about the credibility of Machsom Watch’s reports.

Machsom Watch's website features an exhibition (from 2006) of over a hundred and thirty photographs entitled Endless Checkpoints: Photographs Taken by Machsom Watch Women. The photo descriptions encapsulate Machsom Watch’s ideology, using the same techniques apparent throughout its reports and website. These include omission of context ("the regime practiced at the checkpoints is arbitrary and random"), legal human rights terminology ("collective punishment") and emotive language (“the scars will remain with us for the generations to come”).

The exhibition has been presented in public galleries in many Israeli cities. Be’er Sheva mayor Ya’akov Turner banned Machsom Watch from exhibiting the photographs in the local Teachers’ Center, claiming that the contents of the exhibition were “harmful to the sensitivities of the public.” This decision was upheld by the Be’er Sheva District Court, after the city’s attorney, Elisha Peleg, stated that the exhibit constitutes “political propaganda whose aim is ‘to undermine the moral right of the State of Israel to exist as a Jewish state in the land of Israel’.” The Israeli High Court refused to interfere with the mayor’s decision, despite an appeal submitted by Machsom Watch in April 2006, complaining that the ban infringed upon the organization’s freedom of expression.

Below are two representative examples of the distortions deliberately created by the exhibition. The final chapter of the exhibition is entitled “body language” and aims to show that the Israeli soldiers present themselves as masters over the Palestinians. However, this impression of Israeli supremacy is not apparent in the picture, but created through the manipulation of the photograph, or through techniques such as perspective, layout and composition.

Figure 1

Figure 2

The photograph Beit Iba Checkpoint: God and Men’s [sic] Hands: Checking an I.D. (December 2004)by Esti Tsal (figure 1) evokes Michelangelo’s painting of The Creation of Adam (1512). The viewer is directed to identify the Israeli soldier with God, and the Palestinian man with Adam. In the original photograph taken by Tsal (figure 2), the Israeli soldier and the Palestinian civilian are aligned horizontally, just as in Michelangelo’s mural. Yet, for the purposes of this exhibition, the picture was rotated by 90 degrees to the right, dissolving the balance and equality among the protagonists, and creating an artificial hierarchal relationship, with the Israeli at the top. The cropping of the picture also contributes to a false impression of Israeli domination. We see neither of the men’s faces, human beings’ most expressive feature. Both men may be smiling, but we are denied this view and left to deduce the nature of their interaction from the position of their hands. In sum, the representation of Israeli control over the Palestinian civilians is not objective, but artificially constructed through the rotation of the photograph and arbitrary cropping. This modified picture appears three times, first as part of the title page of chapter twelve, then as a background for the synopsis and finally on its own as an object in the exhibition.

Figure 3

The misrepresentation of photographs in order to portray the Israeli soldiers as aggressors and the Palestinian civilians as victims is again apparent in Huwwara Checkpoint: A Taxi Driver Attacked by a Soldier and Pushed to the Ground (2004), also by Esti Tsal (figure 3), featured in chapter seven, “Violence at the Checkpoints”. Once again, the title is misleading and is not supported by the poses of the figures. The soldier stands upright with both hands on his gun barrel (pointing to the ground), while a Palestinian man lies on his back and stretches out his arm for the soldier to help him up. If the soldier had just pushed the man to the ground, he would be leaning forward and at least one of his hands would be outstretched. In addition, the Palestinian man would appeal to his Palestinian comrades for help and not to the Israeli soldier. Moreover, the other Palestinian men are standing around in all kinds of relaxed poses, leaning on the railing or on each other’s shoulders, not in the least alarmed or fearful, and do not rush to help their companion up. One of the men, standing on the left in the white shirt, even appears to be laughing, but covers his mouth with his hand. In fact, it seems that the man on his back is just lying down to rest in the shade, until the Israeli soldier announces that his turn has come to cross the checkpoint, and so the Palestinian man asks him for help in getting up. Yet the caption condemns the Israeli soldier and accuses him of aggression toward the Palestinian.

Conclusion:

Machsom Watch’s stated goal of protecting the human rights of Palestinians passing through Israeli checkpoints is admirable. However, in reality, Machsom Watch pursues a political campaign against the Israeli government and military, with the aim of “ending the occupation”. Its omission of the context of terror, as well as its use of legal human rights vocabulary, “apartheid” rhetoric and emotive language contribute to the demonization and delegitimization of Israel. The work of Machsom Watch would be much more effective if it reported accurately, and promoted human rights universally, recognizing the difficulties in balancing Israeli rights to life and security, and Palestinian human rights.

Endnotes:

1. In our telephone conversation of October 25, 2007, NIF representative Liora Halivni would not say how much NIF gives to Machsom Watch from its own budget.

2. Tsilli Goldenberg, “Systematic Abuse by Administrative Means: A Matter of Policy? A Report on the Operational Practices of the Civil Administration in Occupied Palestinian Territories”, Machsom Watch, 2003. Available: http://www.machsomwatch.org/docs/civilAdministration.asp?link=summaries&lang=eng

3. “MachsomWatch Observations During December 2006”, Machsom Watch. Available: http://www.machsomwatch.org/docs/monthlyReports/December2006Eng.asp?link=summaries&lang=eng

4. Amelia Thomas, “Checkpoint Witnesses,” The Christian Science Monitor, June 7, 2006. Available: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0607/p13s02-wome.html

5. Yehudit Kirstein-Keshet, “On Founding Machsom Watch,” originally published in Hedva Isachar’s Sisters in Peace, Feminist Voices of the Left, Resling, 2003. Available: http://www.gilasvirsky.com/yehuditkeshet.html

6. Tsilli Goldenberg, “Systematic Abuse by Administrative Means: A Matter of Policy? A Report on the Operational Practices of the Civil Administration in Occupied Palestinian Territories”, Machsom Watch, 2003. Available: http://www.machsomwatch.org/docs/civilAdministration.asp?link=summaries&lang=eng

7. NGO Monitor, “Machsom Watch Reports Distorted by Political Bias”, December 15, 2004. Available: http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/_machsom_watch_reports_distorted_by_political_bias

"Historical insight" from a Jewish self-loather

An excerpt from the excellent, must-read essay by Seth Frantzman, currently in the doctoral program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and whose master's thesis was on the 1948 war, in a counterpoint rebuttal of Ilan Pappe, a communist anti-Zionist self-loathing Jewish historian at Haifa University who has defended a student, Teddy Katz, for written essays documenting a fictitious Israeli massacre at the village of Tantura in 1948, and presenting it as truth. Via JPost:

It has become fashionable in recent decades to frame the 1948 war as one in which the Arabs were victims of Zionist aggression. Anti-Zionist scholars such as Noam Chomsky, Rashid Khalidi and Ilan Pappe have presented the war as if the only important events were Deir Yassin and the flight or expulsion of Arabs from Haifa, Acre, Tiberias, west Jerusalem, Jaffa and numerous villages.

These views are those of the "new historians" - leftist scholars who in the 1980s began to reinterpret Israeli and Palestinian history. He is the author of six works on the history of the Israeli-Arab conflict and the Middle East. In his recently released book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Pappe claims that Israel prepared a special plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine's Arab population known as Plan D for dalet. Pappe's "evidence" is derived from his interpretations of files found in the Hagana and Israel state archives.

But Pappe makes one egregious mistake. He never bothers to ask the same question of the Arabs he does of the Jews: What about their lists, their intelligence reports and their ethnic-cleansing plans? What were Arab intentions in the five months between the passage of the UN partition plan on November 29, 1947, and the birth of Israel?

The archives of The Palestine Post, now The Jerusalem Post and then the newspaper of record of Mandatory Palestine, provide some of the answers and tell a very different story from the one presented by Pappe.

-- Sixty-two Jews were murdered by Arabs in the first week after the UN partition plan was passed, and by May 15, 1948, a total of 1,256 Jews had been killed, most of them civilians. These deaths were caused by Arab militias, gangs, terrorists and army units which attacked every place of Jewish inhabitation in Palestine.

The attacks succeeded in placing Jerusalem under siege and eventually cutting off its water supply. All Jewish villages in the Negev were attacked, and Jews had to go about the country in convoys. In every major city where Jews and Arabs lived in mixed neighborhoods the Jewish areas came under attack. This was true in Haifa's Hadar Hacarmel as well as Jerusalem's Old City.

Massacres were not uncommon.

-- Thirty-nine Jews were killed by Arab rioters at Haifa's oil refinery on December 30, 1947. On January 16, 1948, 35 Jews were killed trying to reach Gush Etzion. On February 22, 44 Jews were murdered in a bombing on Jerusalem's Rehov Ben-Yehuda. And on February 29, 23 Jews were killed all across Palestine, eight of them at the Hayotzek iron foundry.

-- Thirty-five Jews were murdered during the Mount Scopus convoy massacre on April 13. And 127 Jews were massacred at Kfar Etzion on May 15, 1948, after 30 others had died defending the Etzion Bloc.

-- In Arab countries more than 100 Jews were also massacred and synagogues were burned in Aleppo and Aden, driving thousands of Jews from their homes.

Back in Palestine many small kibbutzim were subjected to attacks, including Gvulot, Ben-Shemen, Holon, Safed, Bat Yam and Kfar Yavetz - all in December. In January and February, it was the turn of Rishon Lezion, Yehiam, Mishmar Hayarden, Tirat Zvi, Sde Eliahu, Ein Hanatziv, Magdiel, Mitzpe Hagalil and Ma'anit.

In March and April these attacks culminated with an assault on Hartuv by 400 Arabs based in the village of Ishwa and an attack on Kfar Darom by members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Arab attackers also bombed The Palestine Post in February. In March, the Jewish Agency, the Solel Boneh building in Haifa and an Egged bus were also bombed.

Some of today's scholars prefer to present every massacre of Jews as a "response" to some Jewish deed, and to portray as a "myth" the very idea that Israel struggled desperately for existence in 1948.

But it was no myth.

The fact is 1,256 Jews were killed in five months. Even before the first Arab villages were captured in April, 924 Jews had already been killed.

Ilan Pappe should have pondered what might have been if those Jews had not been slaughtered.

For more on the scourge known as Illan Pappe, see this, this and this.

Click here to read the full essay, Ethnic cleansing in Palestine?

A president who does not represent the people: Peres: Time to sever Israel's biblical heartland

What a detestable bastard. In his inauguration speech, Israel's 9th president pushes his vision of peace, which makes no room for Jews in Judea and Samaria. From President Peres: Time to sever Israel's biblical heartland:

Just hours before being sworn in as Israel's ninth president on Sunday, Shimon Peres said the time had come for his nation to surrender its biblical heartland in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) to the Palestinian Arabs.

“We have to get rid of the territories,” Peres said in an interview with The Associated Press. The elder statesman insisted, contrary to recent opinion polls, that an overwhelming majority of Israelis agree with him on this issue.

In his inauguration speech later in the evening, Peres expounding upon his vision of peace for the Middle East, but Israel National News pointed out that he did not once mention ongoing Arab terrorism against the Jewish state that has made the conclusion of any peace deal impossible.

Despite filling a largely ceremonial role, an Israeli diplomatic source told The Jerusalem Post that Peres can be expected to continue behaving like a “one-man foreign ministry” as he works to forward his own agenda.

Judische Selbst-hass (Jewish self-loathing)

Steven Plaut correctly illustrates in this excellent article how "Israel-bashers and anti-Semites of the Left and of the Right never tire of the delight in discovering and recruiting yet another Jew willing to serve as spokesperson for their political agendas. They are invariably convinced that if they can point to any Jew who mouths their mantras about Israeli "apartheid" and Zionist "racism", never mind that Israel is the only Middle East country that is NOT an apartheid regime, then surely what they are saying MUST be true."

The following misanthropes, these despicable Jews who hate their mothers and resent their fathers should - and must - be on the receiving end of your disgust and reproach.

If you get a chance, mock these Jewish derelicts. Write to them. Interrogate them. Demand of them irrefutable proof of their alleged indictment of Israel, although they won't be able to. They are impotent men. They are dirt, embarassments, runts of the litter, and utter failures as human beings. According to Plaut,

...one particularly noisy segment of this [self-loathing Jew] phenomenon is its academic wing, consisting of expatriate Israelis with PhDs, holding teaching jobs at academic institutions outside Israel. These "academics" are generally less crude than some of the non-academic Israeli expatriate haters of Israel, people such as Gilad Atzmon (a saxophone player in Britain who stars at all the Trotskyite events there), who has called for the burning down of synagogues, or Shraga Elam, a Swiss ex-Israeli best known for writing sycophantic letters of admiration to Holocaust Denier David Irving, or Dror Feiler, a Swedish ex-Israel best known for creating "art" celebrating a Palestinian terrorist mass murderer, or the Russian-born ex-Israel who calls himself "Israel Shamir", a deranged Holocaust denier and darling of European Neo-Nazi groups. "Shamir", a regular on Counterpunch, is so openly pro-Nazi that even European anti-Israel activist groups repudiate him as an embarrassment to their cause.

These pig-Jews, like "Neturei Karta" are poster children for Arab Muslim terrorists. By the way, if anyone ever wondered where the pseudo-Judaic pagan cult "Neturei Karta", the pro-terror cheerleaders of Arafat and Arab Muslim terrorists, get their money, click here.

Those Jews who provide aid and comfort to madmen bent on Jewicide demonstrate that they have no place in the great gift of Torah. Oh, and Ron Kuby, you would also most certainly benefit by reading this book.

UK Appoints New Foreign Secretary

No wonder he was appointed. A Jew himself, he despises Israel as much as the next person. From UK Appoints New Foreign Secretary:

David Miliband, 41, who is Jewish, was selected as foreign secretary on Thursday by new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. According to press reports at the time, Miliband was critical in a cabinet meeting last July of Blair's refusal to denounce Israel for its actions during the Second Lebanon War. The BBC reported that Miliband's appointment could presage a shift "in British foreign policy to one in which criticism of the United States and Israel is not off the agenda - as it was under Tony Blair." On Thursday, former Prime Minister Blair said he will begin his new job as the Quartet's Middle East envoy immediately and will likely come to the region next month. Government officials in Jerusalem said they were content with Blair's mandate, which was essentially to engage in PA institution-building. The officials said they were satisfied that Blair's job was not defined as a mediator because Israel preferred to deal directly with the Palestinians.

Controversial Professor Denied Tenure at DePaul

Revenge is sweet. From Controversial Professor Denied Tenure at DePaul:

Norman Finkelstein, a DePaul University faculty member with outspoken views on Israel and Jewish issues, has been denied tenure. DePaul Dean Chuck Suchar of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences said he found Finkelstein's attack-style scholarship inconsistent with the university's commitment to respect for the views of all.

Use discretion when donating to specious charities

From David Bedein of www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com:

Another development - the New Israel Fund is raising funds for Arab towns, with the specious claim that they were the only ones without appropriate shelter facilities, without noting that the Arab villages, like ALL Israeli towns, were ill prepared and without appropriate shelters -despite six years of warnings that were ignored.

The greatest lie of all concerns the issue of the air raid siren systems. The NIF is spreading the word that the Arab villages do not have the sirens. An investigation by Ronny Sofer, correspondent for YNetNews.com, documented how Nazareth and some of other Arab villages had demanded to be cut off from the Israel siren system, because they did not like being bothered on Israel Memorial Day and Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The bottom line: Discretion is the better part of valor. This will be a time to give with your hearts and with your heads...to make sure that the people in need really get the help that they deserve. Thousands of people in Israel are bereft, and the system in place cannot help them. Funds must go directly to their needs, with full accountability.

A Jewish pro-palestinian pays a visit

We've been getting some visits and emails from some Jewish pro-palestinian trolls, including one miserable wretch in particular who wrote us three times, each time threatening us with libel. Of course she had no case, but that's what pro-palestinians like to do; shut down and silence their opponents.

Well, folks, the good news is we're here to stay, and Smooth Stone is going nowhere unless WE say so. We won't be dicked around by some little misanthrope from Europe.

So, to those terrorist-loving, self-loathing Jewish trolls out there, and you know who you are, who remain delusional about the culpability of the arab / palestinian / islamist agenda and their crimes against Israel and civilization, here again are the facts for you to choke on:

Show us where it is part of Halacha for a Jew to dedicate the bulk of her time to demonizing the Jewish collective, to defend palestinian terrorists, and to ensure that Jews are not cooperatively empowered, as you have done?

You've made it clear in your posts that you don't think Jews collectively belong at the world's table of nations unless its on everyone else's terms first.

Is it Halacha to tell Jews to always take a backseat to other people's needs/desires, regardless of a whole host of negative consequences?

Oh sure, it's easy to capitulate to the whims of a majority, but any true civil rights advocate would work to foster tolerance of a minority by understanding how Jews, Berbers, Copts, Maronites, Assyrians, Kurds, etc. have all been disenfranchised specifically due to the concept that the Middle East is only "Arab land."

What do you think would have happened when Jews started to return to repopulate Israel, if the Arabs opened up their arms?

If your answer is, 'Yes, I think things would have been better', then you just proved that it was not Zionism that caused the crisis in Israel, but Arab reaction to it.

All people - including Jews - deserve to have their lives safeguarded, even those wrongly accused by people like you, of being outsiders. Being called an outsider doesn't make it so. Too bad you missed the lesson where it is wrong to capitulate to xenophobia.

Bottom line is that you are not interested in making the lives of palestinians better as long as you advocate a transfer of power to Arafat's unaccountable, merciless mafia, or Yassin's intolerant Islamist world outlook.

Tell us one thing that anti-Zionism has ever done that benefits either palestinians or the world at large.

My dear, you've dedicated your life to a pathetically failed social enterprise; at least show us where anti-Zionism has been a success somewhere rather than a complete failure for all involved.

Looking at the condition of the palestinian territories, thanks to anti-Zionist warmongering, you already have lost on the social, political, and economic fronts, and yet you and your cronies continue to try to come up with some rationalization for your flunky social policies.

Until you do so, don't expect anyone to believe that you are interested in a humanitarian principle or social enlightenment. Rather, your interests lie only in facilitating a palestinian powergrab, even though the evidence is quite clear that it would make the lives of people worse, not better. It's always easier to be against something than for something.

You're not an advocate for liberty, freedom, or social justice as long as you wave the destructive, failed anti-Zionist banner.

The proof is clear -- you advocate a terrorist policy and a terrorist state that will result in the absolute liquidation of your people, the Jew's patrimony, such as the now destroyed Joseph's Tomb, our Holy Temple, and the innumerable artifacts unearthed and destroyed by the criminal Waqf, in their attempt to obliterate any evidence that Jews were the original "occupiers" of Jerusalem.

To you, power is an end in and of itself, not a means to achieve a better life, which is the case with Zionism.

You have entrenched yourself with the enemies of Jews, built upon destructive anti-Zionist politics that are destructive in totality offering nothing constructive whatsoever, not for palestinians, not for Jews, and not for the world-at-large.

Why? Where did your parents go wrong?

Obviously, you must admit that you haven't thought your position through clearly, which is sad considering you've dedicated your adult life to it.