Thursday, July 2, 2009
Oh no..they're sending her back: McKinney held in Israel, to be returned to U.S.
ormer U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney -- who was aboard a ship the Israeli navy intercepted this week -- is in a detention center and will be returned to the United States, the U.S. Embassy said.
McKinney was among those on a ship that the Israeli Defense Forces said violated an Israeli blockade and crossed into Gazan waters on Tuesday.
The Israeli navy gained control of the ship and took McKinney and about 20 people into custody, said the Free Gaza Movement, a human rights group [LOL] that sent the ship...
...McKinney served six terms in the House of Representatives as a Democrat from Georgia and was the Green Party's 2008 presidential nominee.
The ex-lawmaker is in the Givon immigration detention center in the central Israeli city of Ramle, the U.S. Embassy said.
She has been given deportation papers but has refused to sign them, the embassy said.
She will be held for three more days, assuming she does not sign the papers, and then will be sent back to the United States, the embassy added...
The bold part sort of puts the absurdity to CAIR's call to get the President involved doesn't it?
Not surprisingly, I generally agree with Dershowitz on most of what he writes about Israel. His op-eds are always compellingly argued and well-written. So this morning I bookmarked his piece in today's Wall Street Journal for reading and linking later: Has Obama Turned on Israel? Oh...'this should be good' I thought. Maybe Dershowitz is finally going to be coming around publicly.
What a let down. Not only is he not really facing up to reality, but his writing here shows it. The piece is weak and not very vigorously argued. He misses one of the most essential points on the settlements -- the huge difference between tiny outposts deep among the Arabs and communities just over the armistice line that ought to be annexed by Israel in any final settlement. Most observers don't get this, Dershowitz certainly does but passes on this simple point. On Iran and Hizballah, the piece is equally weak.
Jonathan Tobin, writing at Contentions, seems to notice the same thing: Obama Turned on Israel but Dershowitz Won't Turn on Obama
Absolute must-read from Roger Cohen, who's argued for engagement with Iran but concludes that
AWESOME.
See why we need real journalists?
The shifting, kaleidoscopic twitters and videos from Iran - from daily life and cataclysm around the world - remain chimerical - fragmented, illusory - without strong clear voices to interpret what we're seeing.
I love the blogosphere but I hope we find a way to maintain a serious professional press as well. We need our papers and we need journalists who are wise and humble enough to change their minds when reality overwhelms preconceptions, with the skill to make words sing.
This piece from Andrew Sullivan's blog at The Atlantic corrects an overly rosy vision of the Jews who live in Iran. They are not a "large community" and probably their position is delicate. Imagine if they'd come out en masse against the regime.
I think it's important to keep their situation in context even as we recognize the fact that the Iranian people are hardly monolithic, that Persian culture and history are worthy of study and respect, and that many Iranians are struggling for their rights.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
A U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer aircraft flies alongside a Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet aircraft from the "Jolly Rogers" of Strike Fighter Squadron 103, attached to the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), after a close air support mission over the Arabian Sea June 25, 2009, in support of coalition forces in Afghanistan. The Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group is deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations as part of a regularly scheduled deployment in support of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. (DoD photo by Lt. Marques Jackson, U.S. Navy/Released)
Good to see some folks in Cambridge (MA) are just cutting through the nonsense and going straight for a Material Support for Terror charge. There's a Viva Palestina Fundraiser tonight at Andala Coffee House. Viva Palestina is George Galloway's outfit that he's using for his (insert adjective here: What's a good word that combines "evil" and "pathetic"?) Gaza supply convoy -- the one that was pelted with rocks in Egypt the first time out. Here's video of Galloway's speech in Gaza where he explains he'll be handing everything over to Hamas officials.
From the Facebook event page You have to log in to Facebook to see it:
...The delegation of hundreds of people from the U.S., led by British Member of Parliament George Galloway, leaves on July 4 bringing urgently needed humanitarian aid. We are excited and humbled to have been invited on the mission.
We would like to invite you to join us in a dinner on Wednesday at 9pm at Andala Cafe in Cambridge (address/link below) following Mazin Quimsyeh's talk at the Senior Center to celebrate and discuss the convoy, and how it can be connected to the movement in Boston. We are also asking for your help--in supporting the convoy and our ability to participate in it--financially. The dinner will act as a fundraiser for which all contributions are deeply appreciated.
Your contributions are vital to the success of the Viva Palestina convoy, and our ability to bring this aid directly to the hands of the people of Gaza, an experience which we would then proactively use to help build the movement here with writing and speaking. We will not be able to join this historic effort without your help. Please read the attached letter by George Galloway, which explains the purpose of Viva Palestina, and appeals for your support. We are trying to raise $10,000. With everyone's help this is entirely possible...
This is signed by organizers Tom Arabia and Khury Petersen-Smith (AKA, The Spitter -- I swear I will fix the videos on that page soon.)
Mr. Galloway sends his regards in a posted letter:
...I hope you feel able to sponsor their mission. Our funds are being handled by the non-for profit organization IFCO and our aid will be given to NGOs and charities in Gaza - so everything is well within the restrictions placed by the US authorities on humanitarian aid to the territory.
This crew should be able to scrape together about $100. They probably spent more for Mazin Qumsiyeh's talk and on whatever dinner costs than they'll ever be able to send to Galloway.
Given that on his last trip he outright gave the stuff over to Ismail Haniyeh, would you trust your own freedom to George Galloway's word that he'll use your money honestly?
ADL has asked for a Justice Department investigation into Viva Palestina: ADL seeks probe of group linked to Hamas
The Anti-Defamation League is urging the Justice Department to investigate whether a U.S.-based group is raising money for Hamas.
Viva Palestina U.S. is a campaign modeled after a similar European initiative, led by British Parliament member George Galloway, that delivered money and a convoy of vehicles to Hamas representatives in Gaza in March. Galloway plans to lead a similar Viva Palestina U.S.-sponsored convoy next month, and he has been visiting the United States recently to publicize and raise funds for it.
In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, ADL said "it is not verifiable that this 'committee' will function independently of the Hamas leadership in Gaza, and Galloway -- who plans to lead the American convoy -- has already demonstrated his willingness to directly support Hamas."
Viva Palestina U.S. organizers say they intend to adhere to U.S. law and will deliver the money raised to a reception committee of nongovernmental organizations in Gaza. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States.
Whether they stay on this side of the law or not, you and I both know where that aid is going to end up in a place run by a brutal terror group...with the brutal terror group.
According to Facebook, confirmed attendees include Board member of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of Massachusetts (ADC), Omar Baddar, who's also the director of the Palestine Cultural Center for Peace...peace, or pieces?
(...and material support for Hamas in Gaza, but who's counting at this point)...The Council on American Islamic Relations has issued a press release: CAIR Asks President to Intervene on Behalf of Former U.S. Congresswoman Seized by Israel. You get three guesses as to who that former Congresswoman is and the last two don't count...yes, it's the Peach State's most famous and un-lovable lunatic, Cynthia McKinney, who has been fairly well outed at this point as a rather straight-forward anti-Semite.
The boat ride is, you'll also have no trouble guessing, the regular outing by the Free Gaza people (or are these the Gaza Freeing People...I lose track) to bring "medicine"...'n stuff...to Gaza (it's mostly themselves, press releases and photo-ops with Hamas, actually). Good to see the Israelis have made a firm decision to stop those shenanigans.
Now confiscate the boat. (And keep McKinney.)
Pat Condell:
Phyllis Chesler also comments on this issue: Al-Qaeda Threatens France Over Burqa, and Islamic Face Masks: Banned in Michigan Courtrooms.
Every day a new surprise. As actual racial discrimination against minorities recedes, and "reverse" discrimination and non-merit based decision making becomes an increasing problem, we are used to left-leaning establishment Jewish organizations being left behind with aging and increasingly obsolete reactionary positions. Yet the ADL was on the right side of the Ricci case: ADL Welcomes Supreme Court Decision in Ricci Firefighters Case
The Supreme Court's decision in Ricci v. DeStefano is a welcome reaffirmation that the government must have a strong basis in evidence to support any race-based decision.
This decision properly forecloses many instances of governmental race-based decision making, particularly those where government unilaterally seeks to correct what it sees as racial injustice for one group while unfairly burdening another.
We are pleased that in making its decision, the Court clearly reaffirmed the central role of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, a fundamental law that ensures that America's workplaces will remain free of racial discrimination and that an employee's race will never be a barrier to opportunity...
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
During last week's demonstration across the street from the inauguration ceremony for the Islamic Society of Boston mosque in Roxbury, Michael Felsen, Director of the local Workmen's Circle, crossed the street from the mosque to engage some of the protesters in discussion. There were approximately 40 protesters holding up signs that read, "Prayer, Yes, Extremism, No" in response to the long association the ISB has had with troubling anti-semites like Walid Fitaihi and the suicide bombing proponent and gay-hating sheikh, Yusuf al Qaradawi.
Mr. Felsen was one of a few Jewish enthusiasts at the mosque festivities. A longtime supporter of the ISB mosque, he appeared at a press conference there in 2007 in solidarity with Mahdi Bray, a leading official of the Muslim American Society, a branch of the radical Muslim Brotherhood based in Egypt. Mr. Bray once appeared at a rally cheering Hamas and Hezbollah. Alongside David Gordis, President Emeritus of the Hebrew College and Sanford Seltzer also of The Hebrew College, Mr. Felsen attended the event to lend his support.
He expressed the need to talk with leaders of the mosque in order to "find out what they were up to."
I admit I was shocked to hear these words from someone who ostensibly is enthusiastic about the opening of the mosque. By implying that the ISB might be "up to something," Mr. Felsen appeared to cast doubt on the sincerity of the ecumenical pronouncements of that group's leadership. Given the group's open record of associations with extremists, it shouldn't take much research to find out "what they are up to."
A word of warning that the political action/cultural dance troop Al-Rowwad is on its way back to the New England area. Their schedule is at their web page, here. You might question why I would give them air by linking the schedule, but the fact is you need to be aware that these groups always try to wangle their way in to the local schools and such to deliver their message. Be aware and be warned. I wrote about this group previously here: Beware of Cambridge Peaceniks Bearing Gifts. You can follow links in that post to stories of the trouble they caused on a previous trip through Connecticut. The donor list, until recently on the site, now removed, was basically a laundry list of anti-Zionist Cambridge peaceniks and JVP-types. Many familiar names.
One of the performances this time is being sponsored by the Workmen's Circle, an ostensibly "secular Jewish" organization that is also nominally pro-Israel, but whose President, Michael Felsen, has been one of the biggest supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood's Boston Mosque, appearing at press conferences with the Muslim American Society and basically as a volunteer to give the group "Jewish" cover. Confronted on the day of the Mosque opening, Felson was asked what actual pro-Israel activism his group had done. Fumbling for a response, he finally blubbered something about signing a petition against "the settlements!" Of course. Why this secular group has any more credibility within the organized, mainstream Jewish community than say, Jews for Jesus, is a mystery. Both seek to pull Jews away to the worship of false idols (no offense to my Christian friends, but that ought to be along the lines of the logical Jewish response).
Of course, there is no huge mystery, as a huge number of people who call themselves Jews today are really agnostics (raises hand) or atheists, suspicious (at best) of actual practicing religious people and taking Marx or his derivatives in place of Torah.
I digress. The point is to keep an eye out around you. As long as Al-Rowwad is in town, you should know where your children are.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
I'm now finally getting around to writing up a few impressions from last Thursday the 18th's CJP-sponsored event, "A Community Discussion -- Obama and Netanyahu: Hopes for America and Israel." (See: Why is CJP Giving Oxygen to J-Street? and Jeremy Ben-Ami Thinks HE Was Elected President)
A view across the street before the event: Good guys left, bad guys right.
You'll recall that the original event created an outcry in the community over the fact that CJP was sponsoring an event that gave a place at the mainstream table to the radical left J-Street, and further, gave the other seat to Steve Grossman, who, though a former AIPAC official, is also a Democratic Party activist, thus opening CJP up to having it pointed out that their community discussion took in all viewpoints -- left and far-left. Ken Levin was added as a last minute appeasement in an effort to avoid a pitch-forking.
It now appears we have a name to answer the question of how this happened in the first place, as the evening was put together by young CJP worker-drone and intern for Campus Progress, Celia Segel (Quote of note: "Ayers, who has now shed his role as a member of the radical 1960s group the Weather Underground, is now part of a growing movement of social justice leaders, public school faculty, journalists, politicians, and parents that aim to bring education reform to the forefront of Barack Obama's agenda."), whose daddy, Arthur I. Segel is faculty at Harvard Business School, a CJP co-chair and a big Democrat money-man.
I think we can begin to see how the night started out so skewed left -- acorn/tree and all... Oh, the youth. I've heard rumors that the event and the way it came to be caused quite a controversy within CJP itself. Good.
Controversy or no, the night was a win for Jeremy Ben-Ami and his J-Street. Just getting a seat at the table was all he needed to give his group some sort of credibility. The Israeli far-left has been a dying beast electorally for a number of election cycles. The Israeli public has been mugged by the reality of Oslo and subsequent events which has left their domestic leftist political parties reeling. That's an inconvenience for our own American left, who can keep pushing their own delusions while Israelis cash the checks American Jewish mouths write. Reality hasn't come home to enough American Jews yet, so they can go on playing at being the good Progressive and sending the bill to the Israelis they purport to support.
Continue reading "Jeremy's Big Night Out"Friday, June 26, 2009
I've heard there was quite a group gathered outside today's opening of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center today. Some pretty good coverage from NECN:
Here's some raw video of Charles Jacobs talking to Imam Abdullah Faaruuq, courtesy of Hillel Stavis. They start talking about Jamal Badawi, go on to talk about Yousef Qaradhawi's thoughts on homosexuality (the Imam thinks he's entitled to his opinion), won't talk to Ahmed Mansour (a man who has been jailed and threatened with death, and whose followers have been jailed and tortured)...he does say Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish State, but doesn't seem to have much of an opinion of Hamas as a terrorist group. A young man with some interesting opinions comes in toward the end before being shuffled off:
Finally, WBUR (the local NPR affiliate) demonstrates a little Freudian slip in Bianca Vazquez Toness' report on yesterday's press conference: New England's Largest Mosque Opens, After Years Of Controversy
BOSTON -- The Islamist Society of Boston Cultural Center was designed to fit into the landscape of Roxbury. Standing about 100 yards away and looking at the mosque, it's the same color -- brick and tan tilework -- as most of the other buildings, including Roxbury Community College...
Doh!
Miss Kelly comments on the day's events, here.
Update: A good picture accompanies this Globe article: Dissent greets mosque opening - Hundreds attend afternoon service, as a few protest
Update2: Globe reporter Michael Paulson has blog posts on the day's events: Roxbury mosque to open today, Interfaith breakfast for Roxbury mosque, and Muslims greet protesters outside mosque.
Expands government, is regressive, hurts the economy, is not based on reason, is a worthless power grab...government is currently absolutely out of control.
In full, from Palestinian Media Watch:
Fatah boasts about lynch murder of two Israeli soldiers in 2000
by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook
As PMW reported earlier this week, PA (Fatah) TV marked the second anniversary of the Hamas takeover of Gaza by broadcasting a public Fatah event that focuses on vilifying Hamas. One part of this performance features a graphic video of Hamas members brutally beating a Fatah member in Gaza.
Another part criticizes and mocks Hamas for the decrease in its terror operations against Israel, glorifies Fatah terror, and ends with Fatah boasting that they "arrested two soldiers in Ramallah," a reference to the October 2000 lynching of two Israeli reservists.
In this scene actors portray a Hamas teacher and student supporters of Fatah and Hamas, debating which movement is greater. Significantly, the competition between Fatah and Hamas supporters is based not on who has built more Palestinian infrastructures, nor on who has promoted peace, but rather on who can take credit for more terror.
The debate ends when a Fatah student trumps Hamas's boast of having kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by mentioning the "arrest of two Israeli soldiers in Ramallah" by the PA-Fatah. This alludes to the lynching and gruesome murder of two Israeli reservist soldiers who accidentally entered the Palestinian Authority-controlled city in October 2000. While the picture of a Palestinian celebrating the killing by waving his bloody hands to the mob horrified the world, the murder remains a source of pride for Fatah.
[Note: Seated in the front row at the event are Fatah leaders, including Muhammad Dahlan, former head of PA security; Kadura Faras, head of the PA Prisoners' Association; Nasser Al-Qidwa, former PA Minister of Foreign Affairs; Samir Al-Mashharawi, senior Fatah official; and others.]
The following is a transcript of the act:
This appeared in Hebrew in Maariv. This translation (in full) has been circulating:
Tell us, where is everyone? Where did all the people who demonstrated against Israel's brutality in Operation Cast Lead, in the Second Lebanon War, in Operation Defensive Shield, or even in The Hague, when we were dragged there unwillingly after daring to build a separation barrier between us and the suicide bombers, disappear to? We see demonstrations here and there, but these are mainly Iranian exiles. Europe, in principle, is peaceful and calm. So is the United States. Here and there a few dozens, here and there a few hundreds. Have they evaporated because it is Tehran and not here?
All the peace-loving and justice-loving Europeans, British professors in search of freedom and equality, the friends filling the newspapers, magazines and various academic journals with various demands for boycotting Israel, defaming Zionism and blaming us and it for all the ills and woes of the world -- could it be that they have taken a long summer vacation? Now of all times, when the Basij hooligans have begun to slaughter innocent civilians in the city squares of Tehran? Aren't they connected to the Internet? Don't they have YouTube? Has a terrible virus struck down their computers? Have their justice glands been removed in a complicated surgical procedure (to be re-implanted successfully for the next confrontation in Gaza)? How can it be that when a Jew kills a Muslim, the entire world boils, and when extremist Islam slaughters its citizens, whose sole sin is the aspiration to freedom, the world is silent?
Imagine that this were not happening now in Tehran, but rather here. Let's say in Nablus. Spontaneous demonstrations of Palestinians turning into an ongoing bloodbath. Border Policemen armed with knives, on motorcycles, butchering demonstrators. A young woman downed by a sniper in midday, dying before the cameras. Actually, why imagine? We can just recall what happened with the child Mohammed a-Dura. How the affair (which was very harsh, admittedly) swept the world from one end to another. The fact that a later independent investigative report raised tough questions as to the identity of the weapon from which a-Dura was shot, did not make a difference to anyone. The Zionists were to blame, and that was that.
And where are the world's leaders? Where is the wondrous rhetorical ability of Barack Obama? Where has his sublime vocabulary gone? Where is the desire, that is supposed to be built into all American presidents, to defend and act on behalf of freedom seekers around the globe? What is this stammering?
A source who is connected to the Iranian and security situation, said yesterday that if Obama had shown on the Iranian matter a quarter of the determination with which he assaulted the settlements in the territories, everything would have looked different. "The demonstrators in Iran are desperate for help," said the man, who served in very senior positions for many years, "they need to know that they have backing, that there is an entire world that supports them, but instead they see indifference. And this is happening at such a critical stage of this battle for the soul of Iran and the freedom of the Iranian people. It's sad."
Or the European Union, for example. The organization that speaks of justice and peace all year round. Why should its leaders not declare clearly that the world wants to see a democratic and free Iran, and support it unreservedly? Could it be that the tongue of too many Europeans is still connected to dark places? The pathetic excuse that such support would give Khamenei and Ahmadinejad an excuse to call the demonstrators "Western agents," does not hold water. They call them "Western agents" in any case, so what difference does it make?
To think that just six months ago, when Europe was flooded with demonstrations against Israel, leftists and Islamists raised pictures of Nasrallah, the protégé of the ayatollah regime. The fact that this was a benighted regime did not trouble them. This is madness, but it is sinking in and influencing the weary West. If there is a truly free world here, let it appear immediately! And impose sanctions, for example, on those who slaughter the members of their own people. Just as it imposed them on North Korea, or on the military regime in Burma. It is only a question of will, not of ability.
Apparently, something happens to the global adherence to justice and equality, when it comes to Iran. The oppression is overt and known. The Internet era broadcasts everything live, and it is all for the better. Hooligans acting on behalf of the regime shoot and stab masses of demonstrators, who cry out for freedom.
Is anything more needed? Apparently it is. Because it is to no avail. The West remains indifferent. Obama is polite. Why shouldn't he be, after all, he aspires to a dialogue with the ayatollahs. And that is very fine and good, the problem is that at this stage there is no dialogue, but there is death and murder on the streets. At this stage, one must forget the rules of etiquette for a moment. The voices being heard from Obama elicit concern that we are actually dealing with a new version of Chamberlain. Being conciliatory is a positive trait, particularly when it follows the clumsy bellicosity of George Bush, but when conciliation becomes blindness,
we have a problem.
The courageous voice of Angela Merkel, who issued yesterday a firm statement of support for the Iranian people and its right to freedom, is in the meantime a lone voice in the Western wilderness. It is only a shame that she has not announced an economic boycott, in light of the fact that this is the European country that is most invested in building infrastructure in Iran. She was joined by British Foreign Secretary Miliband. It is little, it is late, it is not enough. Millions of freedom seekers have taken to the streets in Iran, and the West is straddling the fence, one leg here, the other leg there.
There is a different Islam. This is already clear today. Even in Iran. There are millions of Muslims who support freedom, human rights, equality for women. These millions loathe Khamenei, Chavez and Nasrallah too. But part of the global left wing prefers the ayatollah regime over them. The main thing is for them to raise flags against Israel and America. The question is why the democrats, the liberals, and Obama, Blair and Sarkozy, are continuing to sit on the fence. This is not a fence of separation, it is a fence of shame.
Here is video from yesterday's press conference held by Americans for Peace and Tolerance regarding today's opening of the MAS-run Boston Mosque:
On June 26, Governor Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino will be honored guests at the grand opening of the Islamic Society of Boston's Cultural Center in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Americans for Peace and Tolerance wish the Boston Muslim community well in their new cultural and religious center, and we celebrate the growing religious diversity it represents. We are deeply concerned, however, about the extremist leadership of this new institution. This video is from a press conference held to discuss our concerns.
The Globe reports on the Mosque opening as well as the controversy: A call to prayer, a long quest fulfilled, and notes that the Governor will not be attending: Governor to miss mosque dedication.
There was a demonstration outside the Mosque ceremony this morning. I've heard some interesting things happened. Hope to have more later.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Some stray, couscous-induced thoughts from www.divestthis.com:
My ten-year-old decided he wanted to raise chickens. (Hang in there for a paragraph or two when relevance to the subject of BDS will start to increase.)
With my wife and I in firm agreement that said chickens should not live in our backyard, we found a local 4H for our boy to join and since then we've gone Dutch on a chicken order from Murray McMurray Hatchery with another 4H family and volunteered to help out at a farm where my kid's Japanese Bantams are living. In fact, the title of this post describes my unsuccessful attempt this morning to convince a one-thousand pound bovine to move back into his pasture (something my ten-year-old figured out when my attempts flopped).
Last night, the 4H parents gathered to make plans for an ambitious set of summer and fall activities including petting zoos at several schools and retirement homes, parades, and - of course - the fall agricultural shows. One parent volunteered his home for Fun Day, another offered to help raise funds to buy a new pair of sheep shears, and the old timers walked us "newbies" through the process of entering our livestock into competitions (contests which can also include "statics," ranging from biggest radishes to best colored eggs).
As I sat in the meeting, my thoughts turned to the fact that we were all participating in a civic organization with a hundred years of history, making decisions and sharing experiences that would be familiar to people living in my parents and grandparents eras (although probably not to my actual parents and grandparents who would have suffered a heart attack if asked to touch a living - vs. barbecued - cow).
Not far from where we met, I suspect a Boy Scout troop was also gathering like they've done for a century while some Knights of Columbus were sharing a drink and talking about the Kiwanis Club meeting they attended earlier that day. And did I mention our meeting was held in a church with its own decades of history and two millennia long legacy?
These civic groups weave into larger tapestries. My 800-family synagogue is really made up of dozens of tinier civic units (Brotherhood, kids classes, choruses, study groups, Havurahs); my 20,000 person town is a pre-Web social network of hundreds of neighborhoods, clubs and institutions; the university I attended a complex of dormitories, classrooms, departments, clubs and teams. Far from being trivial, the thousands of decisions and conversations going on in meeting halls, living rooms, basements and backyards make us who we are. They define us as a community, a nation and a civilization.
And yet civic society is also fragile. How many small towns fractured due to feuds which spanned generations? How many churches fell apart because internal conflict drove off members needed to keep the institution going? How many campuses were torn apart due to political conflict which broke along communal lines?
Into this fragile ecosystem step the sirens of divestment. For them, the church or school or town or union is not a living thing that needs to be supported and nurtured. For they only see the reputation these organizations have earned due to decades or centuries of contributions of people like those at the 4H meeting last night. If only that reputation can be exploited, the BDSers think, then it won't just be us decrying Israel as an "Apartheid State," it will be the voice of the Presbyterian Church or Hampshire College or some other valuable "brand."
But what if dragging (or, even worse, tricking) an organization to embrace the divestment position creates the very poisons that can damage or even kill the institution into whose mouth the divest-from-Israel position has been stuffed? That's irrelevant to BDS advocates who only see in our civic space a set of props to be manipulated in their own political psychodrama, consequences be damned.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that a group of parents deciding how they'll afford a set of shears, a set of girl scouts learning to carve neckerchief slides, a church committee planning a summer picnic, all of them are infinitely more important than the causes touted by cynical political activists who hope to manipulate the church, the campus, the town, the union with their campaigns of moral blackmail and intimidation. If their causes are so just and important, let them stand on their own, or let them create their own civic space that creates something of value and does not simply attach itself, parasite-like, onto an organization whose reputation may outstrip its ability to avoid divestment's lures.
Oy.
Andrew Sullivan claims there is a "Neocon War Against Roger Cohen," here, and he cites as proof this piece from Commentary, which does in fact list some of Roger Cohen's "inconsistencies" on the Iranian regime.
Now, Commentary is not a "neocon" magazine, but it is advertised as a "General but Jewish" magazine so I wonder if Mr. Sullivan is trying to tell us something?
I have no idea whether Emanuele Ottolenghi is a "neocon" or not (he is a general maybe?) but it is a safe bet that he is a "Jew" and at the very least he is obviously published by a "Jewish" magazine.
Now, Mr. Sullivan claims that said "neocons" would, were Roger Cohen not "Jewish," be calling Mr. Cohen an "anti-Semite."
Wait a second.
Maybe Roger Cohen is actually a "neocon"? I mean if a Commentary author is by default a "neocon" maybe Mr. Cohen is one too?
I must be a "neocon" also since my mother was a "neocon" and I am a Reform "neocon" myself.
As a matter of fact I am a Left Wing Reform "neocon" although I admit I don't go to Temple very often.
In fact usually go only at the High Holidays to hear the cantors, though not at the Temple I usually don't attend because the cantors are better at the other one, so ok that's sort of on the Left Wing Secular side of the spectrum, in fact some would say "Bad Neocon" though I have excellent taste in "neocon" music, but I digress.
More importantly, I am a Democrat who voted for Obama and many, many others like me have been pretty mad at Roger Cohen for some of his preaching about Iran, which has demonstrably been proved false.
Can we all agree that the mere presence of 25,000 "neocons" in Iran has clearly not shown said state to be a Thriving Democracy in the immortal words of Zbig The Realist, Friend of The Neocons and The Neocon State, now has it.
Personally, I feel strongly that states which force women to veil and which "don't have any gays" and which oppress religious minorities and stone people for adultery and which choose the political candidates who may run for office are by definition NOT DEMOCRACIES thriving or otherwise but being a mere "neocon," even a Left Wing Reform FEMINIST "neocon" who voted for Obama, what do I know right?
Left?
Now, to his credit Mr. Cohen, the "neocon," has been writing brilliant pieces from Iran since the election, pieces of real journalism and not propaganda or apologetics for the regime, nor has he been declaring that "Israel Is Crying Wolf" lately nor lecturing expatriot Iranian "neocons" about The Glories of the Revolution, and he deserves credit where credit is due.
So he's getting it. Credit I mean.
At least from this particular "neocon." Who by the way has no problem calling antisemitic Jews antisemites, regardless of whether they are neocons or not.
Mr. Sullivan, on the other hand...
Dude. Come on over and tell us why YOU are not an antisemite. Or should I say, "anti-neocon"?
PS: an article by you is a war?
This just in from someone described as "an FBI insider":
Friends,
Today, FBI Deputy Assistant Director for Counterterrorism Tom Harrington is meeting at FBIHQ with Imam Majid of the ADAMS Center in Sterling,VA. Imam Majid is also the Vice-President of the Islamic Society of North America - a known Muslim Brotherhood entity and un-indicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Trial in Dallas in which all defendants were found guilty of leading the Hamas front group. This was the largest terrorism financing trial in the history of the United States.
This meeting today follows yesterday's official decision by FBIHQ to use ISNA as their official point of contact with the American Muslim community. ISNA is one of the largest and most prominent Muslim Brotherhood entities in the US. The Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928 with two objectives (which are their same two objectives today): impliment Islamic Law and re-establish the global Islamic Caliphate. Their creed, which is stil their creed today, includes "...martrydom in the way of Allah is our highest inspiration."
Agents and attorneys aware of this decision believe it obligates them to violate US law by forcing them to work with a front group for a designated terrorist group (Hamas). It is worth reminding you all that the Hamas Covenant states Hamas is a Muslim Brotherhood entity, and that Hamas is a designated terrorist organziation by the US government.
I strongly encourage you all to notify your state and federal elected officials and push them to call for the strongest possible action against the FBI, to include the removal of all senior FBI officials who approved this decision. I also encourage the maximum release of this information to the American public.
Please do not use my name in conjunction with this information at this time. Thanks.
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