Israellycool

I normally prefer to articulate my own views myself - except when someone else articulates them better than I could.

David Bogner: Is it Just Me?

How sad is it that after all these years we still haven’t settled the most basic issue of Israel’s right to self-determination… yet Palestinian self-determination is not only a given, but their right to define themselves any way they like is considered sacrosanct.

Just to review:

1. The Palestinians want demand their own state… but they want all of the ‘Palestinian refugees’ to have the right to retrn to Israel… not the Palestinian state. Isn’t the very raison d’etre of a Palestinian State (and the Paletinian self-determination movement) to provide people who self-identify as ethnically, politically or culturally ‘Palestinian’ with a place they can call their own???

2. The Palestinians claim the right to self rule and bridle at any whiff of outside interference in their internal affairs… yet they demand that Israel be treated like some bankrupt company languishing in receivership that must be administered by an outside fiduciary trustee (i.e. the UN or the EU).

3. The Palestinians are arguably the least transparent legal/political/financial entity on the planet, yet they dismiss as cumbersome and insulting any request from those who have been pouring unprecedented amounts of foreign aid into their Swiss bank accounts coffers (more than even the Marshall Plan provided to All of Europe after WWII) for even the most basic accounting of where the money has gone.

4. The Palestinians have no single centralized authority to govern political, military, economic, infrastructure, medical, intelligence or security issues. In fact there are as many as seven or eight entities claiming control of some of these ‘departments’… and nobody at all minding the store in others. But despite this novel ‘decentralized’ approach to government, they expect Israel to enter into binding negotiations with them even as they engage in open civil war amongst themselves… without a clue as to who might emerge the winner or how the victor might be disposed towards honoring exisitng agreements with Israel.

5. Normally a people yearning for nationhood have some basic idea of what kind of government they want, how the economy will be arranged, how basic infrastructure (electricity, sewage, water, roads, transportation, etc.) will be provided for, how the citizenry will receive medical care and education… and perhaps most important, how it will relate to its neighbors and the rest of the world. The Palestinians have done about as much thinking on these subjects as one can comfortably fit on a cocktail napkin. Yet they have several full-fledged chapters of their charter that, to this day, still call for the destruction of the Zionist entity . Clearly they have given some thought to that part of the plan.

6. Even as the Palestinians bring claims to the UN and other interested parties of ‘Israeli atrocities and genocide’ they continue to bombard Israel cities with rockets, stab Israeli citizens in the street, throw Molotov cocktails and rocks at civilian traffic and attempt to smuggle explosives to terrorist cells for use against Israeli civilian targets. Yet we still provide them with fuel, electricity, water and other ‘humanitarian’ services.

Somebody please explain to me again why we are talking to the Palestinians about anything right now (except possibly terms of surrender)?

So to answer your question David: no, it is not just you.

(David generally shys away from political posts, but he really shouldn’t).

Inspired by the comments to this post, what I would like to know is:

If you were creating a pro-Israel group blog site, which 5 pro-Israel bloggers would you choose?

(Elder, Brian, and I promise not to ban you from here if we are not on the list!)

What is it about these weblog awards that turns otherwise articulate and thoughtful bloggers into the equivalent of high school kids desperately seeking validation?

Note: If you are going to accuse me of similar behavior in the past, I will respond by saying:

1. I have never taken the actual results seriously and always seen the awards’ only as a means for blogs to get more exposure.

2. Who said I was an “otherwise articulate and thoughtful blogger”?

My friend and fellow blogger Richard Landes is all over the Al Dura story at his blog.

Even if I had the time, I could not cover this case as extensively, methodically or as professionally as he has.

The web’s most intellectually dishonest and condescending blogger, Richard Silverstein, is not surprisingly getting some air time at The Guardian - a media outlet so vehemently anti-Israel, that even their music writers feel the need to express their vile political opinions.

Silverstein’s latest, in which he defends those who say Israel is an apartheid state, is entitled Don’t mention the A-word.

I’m sorry, but when it comes to Silverstein, I cannot help but think of the A-word.

Only a different one.

Last year, a French court found Philippe Karsenty, founder of French online media watchdog Media Ratings, (that’s him to the left of me in the picture) liable for “insulting” France 2 TV and reporter Charles Enderlin, after he wrote an article claiming the Mohammed Al Dura clip broadcast by France 2 was a fraud.

Which it was.

Now, as my friend Richard Landes points out, his appeal trial is coming up. So Richard has set up a petition as part of an effort to pressure France 2 and the Justice system to release the unedited video tapes that France 2’s palestinian cameraman sent them.

If like me, you would like the truth to get out and justice served, please sign the petition and spread the word.

Jewish website Jewcy has joined fellow Jewish websites The Forward and Jew-Ish in providing another platform for publicity-seeking, Israel-bashing blogger Richard Silverstein. And he hasn’t wasted any time spreading his bile.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with inviting people with divergent views to guest post on your site. But Silverstein has proven time and time again that he is not interested in any honest dialogue. He has a very specific agenda, and his arguments do not hold up to any scrutiny. He knows this, and responds to critics by either a) hurling insults b) modifying his critics’ comments c) banning critics from commenting on his posts d) modifying his own posts on the sly e) trying to ruin the reputation of his detractors or f) all of the above.

Jewcy seemingly aims to be a young and hip Jewish website. Which makes Silverstein’s appointment even more of a mystery.

This morning, the Sydney Jewish Community held a rally to remember kidnapped Israelis Gilad Schalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, and to demand their release.

NeoZionoid was there, and he has all the pictures and video that’s fit to print.

Reading some of the other Israeli blogs, it looks as though there was a blog conference in the Holy Land this week.

While I am surprised I didn’t hear of it until after the fact, I am not arrogant enough to think I am somehow entitled to an invite. So you won’t be getting any whiny “why wasn’t I invited?” post from me. Not this time, anyway.

I did, though, read some of the accounts from conference participants, and was struck by a couple of them, for very different reasons.

First up is this post by some blogger called Garrett Graff. Looks like a nice enough chap, and he seems to have enjoyed his time over here. However, I was intrigued by this observation of his:

I’m in Tel Aviv this week for Israel’s first blogging conference. I was one of a half-dozen U.S. bloggers invited to come speak at the conference, since the U.S. blogosphere is a few years more advance than Israel’s right now.

I am curious as to how the US blogosphere is more advanced. Do bloggers like Garrett Graff write using a bigger vocabulary than those like me? Or is it the ability to set up an blog with an alliterative name? In any event, I find it ironic that his statement about the relatively advanced state of the US blogosphere would contain the grammatical error that it does.

The other blog post from the conference that got my attention was this one by Micah Sifry, which includes this passage.

I am also grumpy because so far I feel like we’ve been visiting a bubble, that we’ve had little to no contact with “real Israelis” but instead are being handled, with the greatest of finesse, by Professional Israelis, people who have made it their job, either by day or by avocation, to “represent” the country to outsiders and make sure we get a varnished view while claiming they are giving us a rounded picture. Out of politeness again, and a sense that, hey, after all, they invited me and paid my way, I bit my tongue when David Brin said that Israel21c had organized a post-Blogference touring itinerary that aimed to give us a balanced experience–seeing the border fence (with an IDF guide), visiting Sderot (a border town being regularly shelled from Gaza) and also meeting an Israel Arab economic development group. I should have said, and what about a meeting with a Palestinian, or one of the Israeli human rights groups? Are you so sure every option for peace has been tried? You say that the Palestinians rejected a two-state solution at Camp David, but what about the fact that after Oslo in 1993 Israel doubled the size of its settlement population and kept demolishing Palestinian houses (built without permits from the occupying authority) at a prodigious rate?

While Sifry’s post is ever-so-aggravating, the above passage should teach the PR professionals a valuable lesson: it is all well and good to invite bloggers to Israel and see firsthand the situation. But the results are not automatic, especially when said bloggers already have preconceived notions of the conflict and an embedded cynicism about Israel. I would suggest that the money spent on bringing such bloggers to Israel would be better spent improving the information flow to those bloggers who are genuinely interested in spreading the truth about Israel to the world at large.

Hey, my koala got rolled!

But in Tamar Yonah’s defense, she at least partially seems to understand that the purpose of the awards is not to win, but rather bring exposure to blogs that deserve a wider readership. And she hearts Israellycool, so I’ve been softened up a bit (not just by the steamroller, I guess).

Her employer, Arutz Sheva, on the other hand…they have an article on the JIBs, but instead of trying to do good and bring readers to the plethora of Jewish, Israeli, and Israel advocacy blogs on display, they are merely asking their readers to go to specific Arutz Sheva affiliated blogs and vote for them. What’s more, when I pointed this out to them, they did not publish my comment. So I’ve decided to try again.

“Not sure what happened to my original comment, but I’ll try again.

Guys, the whole point of these “awards” is to introduce new readers to Israeli, Jewish, and pro-Israel blogs. So I would hope you would encourage your readers to look at the other such blogs, rather than just ask them to vote for Arutz Sheva affiliated blogs. After all, these “awards” are meaningless as actual awards. I should know - I invented them. “

Now that I’ve alerted this to a wider readership, I wonder if they’ll publish the comment or - more importantly - encourage their readers to explore the other blogs.

By the way, their article makes no mention of the JIBs’ real purpose, except “to provide recognition for bloggers.” This is so not the purpose of the JIBs. But I guess it would have helped if they had bothered contacting me.

Update: Well, they’ve now published my comment,  but are still not making any attempt to promote any blogs but their own.

I’ve asked the blogger in question - a music writer called Tim Jonze (not to be confused with Tom Jones) to justify his statement that my rants are against Islam.

In the meantime, it is good to see that The Guardian is so beyond the pale, that even its music writers have a degree in moonbattery.

Farid Ghadry, President of the Reform Party of Syria:

As a Syrian and a Muslim, I have always had this affinity for the State of Israel. As a businessman and an advocate of the free economic system of governance, Israel to me represents an astounding economic success in the midst of so many Arab failures. I measure achievement not in terms of trade or dollars going in or out (Saudi Arabia is best at that) but in terms of scientific prowess that ultimately churns the economic engine of success.

While many Arabs view Israel as a sore implant, I view it as a blessing. I should provide an example of what I mean.

In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech tragedy, we learned that friends of ours lost a daughter. Some ten days later, we visited them at their house with some other friends. Conversation surrounding the tragedy ensued and one of my dearest friends whom I have a lot of respect for objected to the story he heard about how the Israeli Ambassador to Washington, through connections, was able to have the body of Liviu Librescu delivered to his family, for religious reasons, before anyone else could have any access to their loved ones. He was fuming against the Ambassador more than against the authorities’ unwillingness to deliver simultaneously the bodies of Muslims who also perished, in particular the Egyptian student Waleed Shaalan. I asked him “Did the Egyptian Ambassador call to have Shaalan’s body delivered early to his family in accordance with our religious traditions?” He did not know the answer to the question but nonetheless kept fuming against the Israeli Ambassador. It was as if the Israeli Embassy did it to spite him or any other Arab. For me, it confirmed the admiration I have for a country that respects their own.

After some heated argument, almost all agreed that Arabs do not have any measure of respect for their own people (due mostly to lack of accountability) and that Arabs must embrace self-empowerment by learning how rather than why Israel begets results.

Israel’s democracy and its economic prosperity are all needed in our midst in the hope that we can learn self-empowerment. It is not hard to imagine our young people learning about empowerment when they watch Israeli democracy on their television sets, but it is hard to imagine they will be able to apply it living under an authoritarian system of government. That is the reason why Arabs send their own young people as suicide bombers instead of nurturing them to grow and become citizens of the world so that one day they can use their connections to help their people like the Israeli Ambassador to Washington helped the Librescu family. How could they nurture them in an environment void of hope for their future?

Israel has, in less than 60 years, built an economy ten times that of Syria with one-fifth the population. How does one explain this fact? It is very simple: Israel is a vibrant democracy. For no fault of our own, Syria has suffered from one occupation after occupation, the latest being organically grown represented by the Assad family. One would think that a Syrian family occupying Syria is less harmful than the French occupying Syria. The truth is, it is much worse. The not-so-civilized Assad family uses much worse despotic techniques. The result is that not only Syrians suffer from lack of opportunities and stifling liberties but they also suffer from lack of hope, dignity, and pride as well; a good formula to create suicide bombers.

When the renowned Berkshire Hathaway of Omaha fancied to invest in the Middle East, it bought shares in Israeli industrial companies on the basis of merit. I do not know of any western investment company who has bought shares in Arab public companies except for the lucrative cellular business, which are unmanageable without western know-how and equipment. That does not mean it won’t happen one day, but it will certainly not happen to any of the countries surrounding Israel any time soon (with maybe the exception of Jordan) as long as self-empowerment is absent.

It is said that approximately one third of all scientific Nobel prize winners are Jewish. The ratio is mind boggling. One third comes from a universe of 15 millions Jews and the remainder two-thirds from the much larger pool of 6 billion-plus people. Arabs (mostly Egyptians) have two or three Nobel Peace and Literature Prizes (From a pool of 350 million people) but no Arab has ever won a Nobel in sciences be it chemistry, physics, or medicine. Any argument here as to why Israel is so important to the region?

The assertion made today by the likes of the ignorant Ahmadinajead, who aspires to wipe Israel off the map, and the violent Hamas, some members of which covet throwing the Jews to the sea, reminds me of the story of two factories built side-by-side. One is very successful and its employees take a good paycheck and the other is not so successful and its employees are economically deprived. The manager of the not-so-successful factory spends all his time striving to destroy the successful factory when he in fact should be spending his time learning and imitating the successful factory for his people to luxuriate in similar prosperity. If some of the Palestinians are not willing to learn (Many do want to imitate the success of the factory next door but are not given the chance to express their views or to be elevated to positions of power), we Syrians want to learn and imitate.

James A. Baldwin said: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” To me, any dispute over shared lands is secondary to bringing prosperity to my people.

(hat tip: Imshin)