New Bill Would Strip Terrorists and Their Families of Citizenship

A bill submitted yesterday (Sunday) to the Knesset would strip terrorists and their families of their citizenship and permanent residency status.

The legislation, submitted by Yisrael Beiteinu faction chairman Robert Ilatov with the backing of his party leader, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, was crafted in cooperation with the Zionist movement Im Tirtzu in response to the murder of 23-year-old border policewoman Hadas Malka this past Friday in Jerusalem.

According to the bill, originally proposed by the late Yisrael Beiteinu MK David Rotem, anyone found to be directly or indirectly involved in a terror attack will forfeit his citizenship and residency permit, along with the citizenship and permits of his family.

The bill would provide family members an opportunity to prove their innocence, which if established would enable them to retain their status.

Ilatov explained that the rights afforded to Israeli citizens and residents enable them to perpetrate attacks with greater ease, and the bill would serve as a powerful deterrent to the recent increase of Israeli citizens and residents involved in acts of terror.

The bill also stipulates that those found to have been complicit in terrorist attacks will lose their socioeconomic benefits, such as welfare payments and subsidized burial expenses.

“We will no longer allow the absurd situation in which terrorists and their accomplices enjoy the rights and benefits of Israeli citizenship while working to destroy the country,” said Ilatov.

 “The purpose of the bill is to send a clear message: Whoever tries to harm the State of Israel will no longer be a part of it.”

Im Tirtzu CEO Matan Peleg called attention to “extravagant” benefits enjoyed by terrorists sitting in Israeli prisons at the expense of the Israeli taxpayer, as well as the payments transferred to the terrorists by the Palestinian Authority.

“Today there exists an extreme situation wherein terrorists know that it is more worthwhile for them to murder an Israeli than to steal his car,”said Peleg.

Peleg also noted that the “bill will limit the power of foreign agent organizations in Israel that work on behalf of foreign governments to defend terrorists and their families in court.”

CAGE MATCH: Conservative Leadership vs. Alex Jones

Originally Published Under the Title: The Secret Reason Why Many Conservative Media Figures Won’t Denounce Alex Jones

Currently under fire for her controversial interview with Alex Jones, Megyn Kelly tweeted the following a few days back:
“…How does Jones, who traffics in these outrageous conspiracy theories, have the respect of the president of the United States and a growing audience of millions? President Trump, by praising him, appearing on his show, and giving him White House press credentials, has helped elevate Jones, to the alarm of many. Our goal in sitting down with him was to shine a light – as journalists are supposed to do – on this influential figure, and yes – to discuss the considerable falsehoods he has promoted with near impunity.”

Legitimate question – why does Alex Jones have the respect of President Trump? As a presidential candidate, President Trump in fact said that Alex Jones has an ‘amazing reputation’. To date, he has not revoked his statement about Mr. Jones thereby making him conspirator-in-chief. So, in light of this, how can anyone take President Trump seriously? But curiously, as the NY Times states, many conservatives have never publicly denounced Alex Jones.

I have constructed a hypothetical conversation between Rush Limbaugh and President Trump which will provide the answer to why conservatives won’t denounce Alex Jones:

PT: Rush, great to see you.

RL: Mr. President, great to see you. You know, I’ve been meaning to ask you, and I say this with all due respect, but why are you so fond of this Alex Jones guy? I remember calling him a Democrat kook years ago. He is just nuts.

PT: Uh, huh. Well, Rush..

RL: No really, Mr. President. I don’t think you are helping yourself by associating with him.

PT: Rush, you and I know all about fake news.

RL: Sure, drive-by media, but..

PT: Let’s start with the Kennedy assassination, you don’t actually believe the official Warren Commission report, do you?

RL: No, of course not. Wait, you’re not going go all National Enquirer and implicate Ted Cruz’s dad for this?

PT: Well..

RL: Sir, this is crazy. My theory is it had to be the mob or Castro but..

PT: Rush, you know the CIA admitted that it covered up the assassination and there are still missing documents.

RL: Ok, fine, but that was over 50 years ago and we all know about that.

PT: Well, you know what my buddy, Bruce Willis, said to Vanity Fair in 2007 – he was afraid of getting killed:

 

“They still haven’t caught the guy that killed Kennedy. I’ll get killed for saying this, but I’m pretty sure those guys are still in power, in some form. The entire government of the United States was co-opted. One guy did it? I don’t think so.”

RL: Ok, what does this have to do with anything? Look – I get all the Clinton conspiracies. We all know about the Clinton body count. I covered the Seth Rich murder conspiracy on my show. Sean [Hannity] laid out how he felt last October. You brought up Vince Foster during the campaign. But 9/11 being an inside job? Do you know how crazy that is?

PT: You know about the $2.3 trillion missing from the Pentagon.

RL: Yeah, whatever, that kind of stuff happens.

PT: Rush, you know there was no way those buildings were brought down by fire.

RL: Here we go.

PT: Look, I am a builder and know everything there is to know about building structures. I even said so on 9/11 during an interview that there were bombs in those buildings.

RL: Ok…

PT: Rush, you read the 28 pages right?

RL: Yeah, basically faulted elements of the Saudi government. And, why are we still friends with the Saudis anyway?

PT: Don’t you find it curious how close the Bush family is to the Saudis?

RL: Yeah, but they didn’t have anything to do with it. Why, George W. Bush is a fine man. You are not going with this Bush did 9/11 theory are you?

PT: Let’s just say the Bushes are not so innocent in all this. Just view this.

RL: Is this stuff true?

PT: Of course, these are official government documents and there is lots of circumstantial evidence. Its also plain common sense.

RL: Huh.

PT: Make sense?

RL: Yeah, I guess I finally understand why the Bushes and Clintons are such good friends. And all the new world order stuff..

PT: Yeah.

RL: I also get why you were so tough on Jeb. Wait, so why are we fighting all these wars – Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya. For goodness sake, I was selling Club Gitmo t-shirts!!

PT: Rush, you’re not the only one. Talk to Congressman Walter Jones. He went from calling out France, you know, the whole freedom friesthing to deeply regretting his support for the Iraq war. He even said a few years back that Dick Cheney is probably going to hell.

RL: Wait, so Ron Paul has been right all along?

PT: Ron Paul, good guy – can never be president – but very honest man.

RL: So, Sandy Hook? Pizzagate? Are they all true?

PT: Look, not all conspiracies are true. There are some crazy ones going around. I even heard of one that Jared is a Mossad agent. All the truth will come out eventually.

RL: So, what do we do?

PT: Well, don’t worry, there are plenty of us who know. Alex is one of the leaders. Until we reach a critical mass, we can’t go public yet. Information will come out in pieces. Look, we have gotten the concept of the deep state out there. Before my inauguration, barely anyone had even heard of it. So, we are making tremendous progress, tremendous. Still a lot of hate, a lot of division. We need to come together. In the future, expect more revelations. Like what my buddy Vladimir said. He just accused the CIA of planning the JFK assassination. And you remember how I hinted about not having any columns when I spoke to the CIA?

RL: Ok, I get it. So, what I am going to do?

PT: Rush, the choice is yours, I understand the risks and won’t ask you to do anything you aren’t comfortable with doing. The truth will get out, regardless of what happens to me. It’s up to you to choose which side of history you want to be on.

RL: Thank you sir. This conversation never happened.

Originally Published on News With Chai

Burying Obama’s legacy

The fact is that Trump has given Netanyahu support as he has walked away from the failed policy paradigm of the Obama years.

It may very well be that this week was the week that Israel and the US put to rest former president Barack Obama’s policies and positions on Israel and the Palestinians.

If so, the move was made despite the best efforts of Obama’s team to convince the Trump administration to maintain them.

The details of Obama’s policies and positions have been revealed in recent weeks in a series of articles published in Haaretz regarding Obama’s secretary of state John Kerry’s failed peacemaking efforts, which ended in 2014.

The articles reported segments of two drafts of a US framework for a final peace treaty between the PLO and Israel. The drafts were created in February and March 2014.

The article series is predicated on the assumption that Kerry and his team were on the precipice of a historic breakthrough between PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. But a close reading of the documents shows that the opposite was the case.

There are two reasons that Kerry had no prospects for reaching a deal.

First, he, Obama and their advisers were too hostile to Israel and its citizens to ever convince Netanyahu that Israel’s interests would be secured.

A February 2014 draft framework agreement, which was based on conversations Kerry and his team held with Netanyahu and his advisers, makes this clear. The draft includes Netanyahu’s demand that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria not annexed to Israel would remain “in place” after the implementation of a peace deal, and presumably, become towns in the future Palestinian state.

In other words, Netanyahu demanded that the Israelis in Judea and Samaria whose towns would be located in the territory of “Palestine” would enjoy the same rights and protections as Israel’s Arab citizens enjoy.

Kerry and his team would have none of it. The February draft agreement notes, “[US] negotiators need to check with PM [Netanyahu] on whether he wants to [maintain this position]… They believe that if so, he will push strongly for ‘in place.’ ‘In place’ is inconsistent with US policy and therefore unacceptable to us as well as the Palestinians.”

In other words, the position of the Obama administration was that all Israelis living in areas that would become part of the Palestinian state must be forcibly removed from their homes and communities.

Haaretz reporters Barak Ravid and Amir Tibon recalled that in previous rounds of negotiations, the Palestinians – unlike the Obama administration – had not rejected this Israeli position out of hand. That is, in demanding the mass expulsion of Israeli Jews from their homes, the administration adopted a policy more extreme than the PLO.

Then there is the problem with the PLO.

Abbas rejected Kerry’s February 2014 draft framework agreement, which was based on conversations with Netanyahu and his advisors. But he also rejected Kerry’s March 2014 agreement, which was based on the US’s conversation with him and his advisors.

The March 2014 draft was presented to Abbas by Obama himself during a meeting between the two in the White House. Not only did Abbas not accept Obama’s offer, he refused to respond to it.

This should have surprised no one. Abbas did the same thing in 2008 after then-prime minister Ehud Olmert presented Abbas with his peace proposal. Abbas’s predecessor, Yasser Arafat, responded in the same way in July 2000 to then-prime minister Ehud Barak’s peace offer, and in December 2000, to then-president Bill Clinton’s peace offer.

Given the consistent track record, it is beyond foolish to believe that anyone – even Trump – will fare differently from his American and Israeli predecessors.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Haaretz series is what they tell us about Netanyahu.

Like him or hate him, the Netanyahu revealed in the articles is a brilliant statesman. In difficult diplomatic conditions, with the US openly siding with the PLO against him, Netanyahu managed to parry and duck. Although Haaretz tries to present Netanyahu as weak and compliant, the text shows that the opposite was the case.

In the face of massive pressure from Obama, Netanyahu refused to commit to anything. His only recorded position was that all Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria remain in place in perpetuity.

Rather than confront Kerry directly, Netanyahu stood aside and watched as the Americans drafted their anti-Israel proposals. He nodded. He smiled. He refused to commit to anything.

And he waited patiently for Abbas to walk away from the table.

Until this week, much to the dismay of many of his supporters, Netanyahu appeared unwilling to move beyond the defensive position he maintained throughout the Obama presidency. This week he took three great big steps forward.

First, Netanyahu announced that he supports amending Israel’s NGO law to ban foreign governments from funding political nonprofits registered in Israel.

For the past 20 years, Israel has been subjected to ever-escalating subversive campaigns funded and often directed by foreign governments and carried out by Israeli-registered NGOs. The purpose of these campaigns is to legitimize political and economic warfare against the Jewish state by European and other Western governments. The campaigns legitimize political and economic warfare against Israel by demonizing the Jewish state, its citizens and its soldiers.

In recent years, lawmakers have tried repeatedly to block the funding. But due to US pressure, Netanyahu scuttled all their attempts. Proposed reform bills were watered down until they were limited to instituting weak reporting requirements. Foreign government funds continue streaming into the coffers of NGOs whose positions are supported by no significant domestic constituencies.

By announcing that he now supports passing legislation that will bar foreign government funding of nonprofits, Netanyahu is striking a strategic blow at the political and economic war being waged against Israel by the EU and by the international Left.

This war, waged in the name of the Palestinians, has harmed Israel’s relations with the Palestinians by discouraging them from living peacefully with their Israeli neighbors.

Then there is UNRWA. The UN’s refugee agency dedicated to the Palestinians is arguably one of the central reasons for the perpetuation of the Palestinian conflict with Israel. Indeed, UNRWA was formed by the Arab governments to specifically block all prospect of peace between Israel and its neighbors.

UNRWA prevents the permanent resettlement of the Arabs who left Israel in 1948 and 1949 as well as their descendants. It has doomed five generations of “refugees” to live in the squalor of its camps, blocked from receiving citizenship in the countries of their birth and prevented from being resettled in other countries.

After Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, then-secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and then-foreign minister Tzipi Livni decided that the best way to respond to the move was by massively increasing UNRWA’s budget. They were unmoved by the fact that UNRWA employs Hamas terrorists. They ignored the fact that UNRWA schools in Gaza and elsewhere indoctrinate their students to embrace jihad and the cause of Israel’s annihilation.

Under Obama, the US increased its payments to UNRWA even as UNRWA schools, clinics and other facilities have been used as missile launching pads and storage depots in Hamas’s war against Israel.

This week, Netanyahu finally put to rest the dangerous folly that UNRWA is a foil to Hamas and a positive force in the region. He called for UNRWA to be dismantled and for the Palestinians and their descendants to be treated like every other refugee group in the world and be resettled by the UN’s high commissioner for refugees.

If Netanyahu’s move against UNRWA is translated into actual Israeli and US policy, it will mark the beginning of the end of one of the primary causes of the Palestinian conflict with Israel.

Finally, there is incitement. Palestinian terrorism would vastly diminish were it not for constant incitement that encourages terrorism and rewards and celebrates terrorists.

Since it was established by the Qatari regime in 1996, Al Jazeera has been a central engine of antisemitic and jihadist indoctrination of the Palestinians. And yet, Israel has never moved to close Al Jazeera’s bureau in Israel.

Israel has given the terrorist network a pass largely because it hasn’t wanted to deal with the Western outcry that such a move would provoke.

This week, for the first time, Netanyahu, along with Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, announced they support Al Jazeera’s closure and have directed their staff to consider the best way to do so.

In so doing, Netanyahu and Liberman are making the most of the opportunity afforded Israel by the Arab states’ open cleavage with Qatar. Last week, Saudi Arabia and Jordan closed Al Jazeera’s bureaus in Riyadh and Amman. Egypt, which closed Al Jazeera’s offices in 2013, blocked its website.

Taken both separately and together, Netanyahu’s moves this week strike strategic blows at three central components of the Palestinian conflict with Israel. Incitement, political warfare and the eternalization of Palestinian refugee status all render the conflict intractable and prevent peaceful Palestinian leaders from emerging.

Notably, whereas the Obama administration would have subjected Israel to hysterical condemnations if Netanyahu had dared to take the steps he took this week, the Trump administration has taken no position on Netanyahu’s announcements.

The real reason that Trump appears to be burying Obama’s legacy is because unlike the ideologically- driven Obama, Trump is willing to consider evidence and facts when determining his opinions.

In May, Abbas came to the White House and told Trump that he abjured terrorism. Israel then presented Trump with evidence that Abbas publicly incites terrorism and uses the Palestinian Authority budget to support terrorists and their families.

Trump took in the information and upbraided Abbas for lying to him.

True, this week Secretary of State Rex Tillerson falsely told Congress that Abbas had cut off the payments. And true, Tillerson doubled down on his assertion after both the Palestinians and Israel said the payments have not been cut off.

True as well that Trump continues to believe that he can make “the deal” that his predecessors failed to secure.

But the fact is that Trump has given Netanyahu support as he has walked away from the failed policy paradigm of the Obama years.

In other words, Netanyahu’s moves this week, and the fact that the Trump administration has left him alone to make them without being second-guessed or condemned by Washington, indicates that we have finally moved past Obama’s legacy.

Where we are going is still unknown. But what is certain is that by going after the sources of the continued malignancy of the conflict and pushing back against the lies that informed Obama’s policies, both Israel and the US have abandoned them.

Originally published in Jerusalem Post

Can Naftali Bennett Uproot the Left’s Monopoly on Israeli Academia

Submitted under the title: Bennett’s academic code: Right sentiment, wrong strategy


In-depth 2013 study: “Israeli academics have been free to engage in ‘nazification’ of Israel”

 

Had such professional misconduct occurred in the natural or physical sciences there would have doubtless been serious consequences: e.g. the collapse of a bridge following phony engineering calculations…Yet it would seem that when it comes to the social sciences or the humanities… the researcher can escape punishment for the worst kind of malpractice…In this Orwellian world where war is peace and ignorance is strength, not only are the falsifiers not censured – they are applauded Prof Efraim Karsh, on radical left-wing academics in “Fabricating Israeli History”

 

…no ethical code will open the doors of the left-wing monasteries to the right-wing “heretics” who dare to think differently than the pseudo-liberals who dominate them. – Dr. Dror Eydar, Israel Hayom, June 12, 2017

 

Earlier this week, Education Minister Naftali Bennett caused a huge public uproar when he introduced his proposed “Code of Ethics” for the country’s institutions of higher learning, stipulating rules, or at least, guidelines, for the conduct of lecturers in the classroom.

 

The two principle components of the “Code” appear to be constraints on lecturers, restricting them from (a) promoting their personal political views in class and (b) endorsing the boycott of Israel, in general and from calling for an academic boycott against it, in particular.

 

Cat among the Establishment pigeons?

 

Bennett’s initiative certainly set the proverbial “cat among the pigeons” across the nation’s academic Establishment—and beyond.

 

Indeed, it was immediately excoriated by all and sundry—including our oh-so politically correct president, Reuven Rivlin—alleging that it would somehow undermine academic freedom and inhibit the vigor of academic inquiry.

 

These allegations are, of course, totally unfounded and should be rebuffed with the disdain they so richly deserve.  

 

Indeed, as Dror Eydar notes:This characterization [of the proposed code] as an ‘attack on democracy’ and ‘attack on academic freedom’ are as much as an insult to our intelligence as they are deceitful”.

 

He adds acerbically and aptly: “If there is an assault on freedom of expression, it exists right now in most the departments of social sciences and humanities, which function as ‘gatekeepers’ that preclude admission of lecturers and researchers who hold conservative-right-wing views…”

 

Eydar’s harsh condemnation mirrors much of my own personal experience but that is something I shall return to shortly.  

 

At this stage, however it is clear that Bennett has put his finger on a crucial issue, impacting the tenor of the public discourse in Israel, and judging from the furor that it has ignited, it appears to have touched a raw nerve among the entrenched and entitled academic elites.

 

Spotlighting the stranglehold

 

In this, he has shown considerable courage for broaching the subject boldly and should be warmly commended for spotlighting one of most acute issues afflicting the nation today: The stranglehold of the Left on academic discourse in—and about—Israel.

 

However, two trenchant questions regarding his initiative must be raised: (a) What is the scope and severity of this problem?  (b) Are the measures proposed the most appropriate and effective for dealing with it?

 

As to the former, there can be little doubt as to both the dimensions and gravity of the problem.  As to the latter, there is regrettably considerable doubt as to whether the “Code” is the optimal instrument for addressing the problem—or if it addresses the cardinal components of it at all.

 

Just how grave the problem of exclusionary bias is in the Israeli academe—at least in the Social Sciences and Humanities –is reflected in a comprehensive study of academic freedom in Israel by the widely respected researcher, Professor Ofira Seliktar.

 

Entitled Academic Freedom in Israel: A Comparative Perspective”, it conducts a comparative analysis of the situation in Israel, the UK and Germany and comes up with several disturbing conclusions regarding the abuse of academic freedom in Israel.

 

The following are some of the more worrying excerpts from the study.

 

“Zionism is a colonial-imperialist movement…”

 

Seliktar depicts the prevailing atmosphere in much of the Social Sciences and Humanities in the country’s academic institutions: “Neo-Marxist, critical scholarship has acquired a substantial following in faculties of the liberal arts (the humanities and social sciences) in Israeli universities.”  

 

She elaborates: “Known as post Zionism, it asserts that Zionism is a colonial-imperialist movement and that its progeny, the State of Israel, is a colonial-apartheid country… Israel is presented as a Nazi-like state and the Israel Defense Force…is accused of Nazi-like behavior”.

 

Seliktar then goes on to depict the exclusionary nature of the syllabuses offered students and the narrow perspectives it provides them: “As a rule, courses offered by self-described post Zionist faculty have been heavily weighted toward this neo-Marxist…paradigm, with little or no effort expended to provide any different perspective.”

 

She then expounds on how Israeli academics harness their position to advance their radical—even anti-Zionist—political agenda: “Combining academic research and political work, post-Zionist academics have engaged in a robust effort to compel Israel to withdraw from the territories; some advocated the return of Palestinian refugees in order to create a bi-national Jewish-Palestinian entity”.

 

Moreover, she points to a reprehensible phenomenon, revealing :“Israeli scholars have adopted a leadership role in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, launched international petition drives condemning the IDF for war crimes, and inspired lawsuits against individual commanders.”

 

“Israeli academics engage in ‘nazification’ of Israel…”

 

Seliktar laments: “Government and university authorities have been slow to respond to this threat, due to the prevalent notion that academic freedom protects faculty speech and action, both intramurally and extramurally.”

 

Just how predictable the current howls of protest at Bennett’s attempt to deal with this outrageous state of affairs are, is reflected in her observation:  “…radical scholars and their liberal defenders in the academy and media have warned that imposing any limits would injure Israel’s standing in the academic world and place it at-odds with standards of academic freedom practiced in other democratic countries…”

 

Seliktar harshly criticizes both the cronyism and the criteria for advancement within Israeli faculties of Social Sciences and Humanities: “…Israeli scholars have been routinely promoted based on publication in radical presses…and journals of dubious academic credibility.”   

 

She warns that “…none of the legal remedies developed in Great Britain and the United States are applicable to Israel…”  Thus, according to Seliktar, “Israeli academics have been free to engage in ‘nazification’ and ‘apartheidization’ of Israel”, unencumbered by constraints prevalent in other Western democracies. Furthermore, she cautions that their work has been seized on by Israel’s most indefatigable foes: “Their work has been quoted by pro-Palestinian or pro- Iranian circles seeking academic legitimacy for their positions.”

 

Summing up, Seliktar cautions that “The lack of understanding of how other countries balance academic freedom with responsibility to state and society has enabled radical scholars not only to abuse academic privileges, but also claim that Israel is sliding toward McCarthyism…”  

 

Right diagnosis, wrong remedy

 

This then, is the dire predicament that prompted Bennett’s well-intentioned initiative, and with which it was reportedly designed to contend.  

 

However, as emerges from Seliktar’s study, it is unlikely to address the major detrimental effects prevailing today in Israel’s academic milieu, or the grave damage the ongoing abuse of academic freedom is inflicting on Israel internationally.

Of course, I in no way wish to belittle the gravity of the fear of intimidation , even retribution, individual students may feel in the classroom should they have the temerity to challenge the political doctrine expounded by their lecturers. However, at the national level, concern should be focused elsewhere. Here, as Seliktar indicates, the problem is not so much which views are expressed—and which are suppressed—within the limited arena of a lecture. What is most damaging to Israel are those that are aired—or stifled—in academic conferences, journals and mainstream media opinion columns, using academic credentials to lend an air of indisputable authority to views conveyed in them.  

However, these effects are not addressed by Bennett’s proposed “Code”. Indeed not only does it not even purport to address them, Bennett himself pointed out, in response to his detractors claims that he is constraining academic activity,  that in these matters academics will still have unfettered freedoms.

 

It is therefore, clear that despite the accurate diagnosis of the malaise in Israel’s institutions of higher learning, the remedy prescribed in Bennett’s initiative will almost certainly be ineffective.

 

The real problem: Criteria for admission & promotion

 

Seliktars’s study underscores that the root of the problem is not so much restricting the expression of political proclivities in the lecture hall, but the criterion for admission to the ranks of academia, and for promotion to senior academic positions. These, too, are issues left largely unaddressed by the Bennett “Code”.

 

To underscore the severity of these two issues, I would challenge the readers to identify any senior tenured academic (and certainly any junior academic seeking tenure) in any major academic establishment, who overtly challenged the Oslo “peace process”, warned of the death and destruction it would wreak on Jew and Arab alike, and urged the Israeli government, publically and persistently, to abandon the perilous path it has embarked upon.  

 

I would be more than grateful to learn of the existence of any such redoubtable “renegade”.

 

Moreover, consider the question of promotion. Suppose some intrepid academic rebel penned a brilliantly prescient article, predicting precisely the disastrous course the peace process would follow, the gigantic wave of carnage it would precipitate, the terror it would bring to Israeli streets, cafes and buses; and the deprivation and devastation it would bring to the Palestinian-Arabs –particularly in Gaza.

 

Admission & promotion criteria (cont.)

Anyone, even remotely familiar with the atmosphere that pervaded the academic milieu at the time, would know—as a matter of certainty—that such an article, no matter how exhaustively researched and/or tightly argued, would have little to no chance of publication in any major journal in the field of political science, international relations or any related discipline.

 

By contrast, if an article, echoing received wisdom of the time, set out a glowing prognosis of how the Middle East was on the threshold of a new era of peace and prosperity, it would have little difficulty in finding its way into the pages of respected academic publications.


So, if the criterion for promotion is one’s record of publication, who is likely be promoted? The candidate who got it totally wrong, but can point to a long list of publications? Or the candidate who got it exactly right, but had no record of published research? The answer is of course painfully clear—sadly reinforcing the lamentable state of affairs in the Israeli academe, so succinctly conveyed by Prof. Karsh in the introductory excerpt: “In this Orwellian world where war is peace and ignorance is strength, not only are the falsifiers not censured – they are applauded.”

 

Indeed they are!

“…solution is to establish new institutions”  

 

None of these detrimental defects will be remedied by preventing a lecturer from expressing his/her political credo in class, or by compelling him/her to present opposing perspectives to his/her students. Indeed, how realistic is it to expect a radical left-wing professor to present the views of right-wing conservatism in anything approaching an adequate and equitable fashion?

No, the quest for a comprehensive and fundamental remedy must be conducted in an entirely different direction—not by quashing expression  of certain positions, but by providing alternative frameworks and mechanisms for the expression of opposing  positions that can effectively challenge the dominant (indeed, domineering) paradigm that currently monopolizes the academic discourse.

 

In this I find myself in complete agreement with Eydar, both when he warns:  “no ethical code will open the doors of the left-wing monasteries to the right-wing “heretics” who dare to think differently than the pseudo-liberals who dominate them”;  and when he prescribes: “The solution is to establish new institutions and think tanks as an alternative”.

 

I totally agree and —in the interests of full disclosure—this is the major thrust of my endeavor at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies, established precisely for this purpose: To establish a “theater of engagement” in which the Left-wing academic elites are compelled to engage intellectual adversaries, and in which their doctrinaire positions can be publically exposed for the dangerous drivel that they really are.   

Accordingly, I call on the Education Minister to channel his efforts (and resources) into this and other like-minded enterprises. I have little doubt that this strategy—of  fostering  more robust debate, rather than trying to straight-jacket it—will be far more fruitful in remedying the ailment he so accurately diagnosed.   

 

 

Has the Trump Administration been Arabized?

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_btn title=”FOR $5/MONTH YOU CAN SUPPORT ALLAN’S WRITING” color=”primary” size=”lg” align=”center” button_block=”true” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.paypal.com%2Fcgi-bin%2Fwebscr%3Fcmd%3D_s-xclick%26hosted_button_id%3DPBTQ2JVPQ3WJ2|||”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The struggle between the US Deep State and the Trump administration can probably be felt the most in foreign policy, especially when it comes to Israel. It is no secret that Donald Trump wants to arrive at a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. Despite the goal, administration or at least many in the administration believe the method rto arrive at such a coveted agreement should be far different than those attempted before.

According to a Channel 20 report, the White House has presented a set of principles to restart negotiations between both sides. The principles include:

  • Tempering construction in Judea and Samaria
  • Security measures in coordination with Jordan and the Gulf States 
  • Normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab states

The thorny issues of Jerusalem and the refugees will dealt with after real normalization takes place.

The same report cites Israel as wanting to add two more principles to the list:

  • Cessation of incitement to violence on the part of the Palestinians
  • Cessation of payments to terrorists and their families

The important part to this report is the fact that the White House is demanding that real normalization between the Sunni Arab world takes place first. At first glance, this appears to be a break through in approach. However, lets keep in mind that the Saudi Peace Plan, which calls for a full Israeli retreat to the arbitrary green line expects the same thing. There is an argument to be made that Trump has succeeded in calling for a change in order in that this normalization must come first, but at the end of the day normalization can be reversed if the Arabs feel Israel is not “retreating” fast enough.

Any connection between an Israeli retreat and the ethnic cleansing of its Jewish citizens to normalizing ties to Arab states who only yesterday were funding Hamas, ISIS, and the Muslim Brotherhood smacks a severe disconnect with the issues at the core of the conflict.

With all of that being  said the Trump administration seems intent on battling back the State Department’s classic approach on the subject of Israel-Palestinian peace by disconnecting Foggy Bottom from the process altogether. The truth is that any process will have negative effects, yet there is something to say in battling back the Deep State, which has been embedded at the State Department for decades.

The key person to look at it in all of this is the President’s long time lawyer and confidant, Jason Greenblatt.  As one source involved in the White House said:

“There’s basically only one guy – Jason Greenblatt. That’s it. There’s no office, there’s no bureaucracy.”

 

Greenblatt is an orthodox Jew and deeply connected to the right-wing in Israel. The crafting of the above principles clearly came from him. Once again, this seems excellent for Israel. On the other hand, the State Department, which has been Arabized since the 1940’s has clearly convinced the Trump administration by way of Rex Tillerson and Gen. McMaster that the Arab peace proposal should be considered as an important part of an overall framework.

So how much has their influence crept into an overall policy by the President?  This is hard to know and won’t be known until negotiations reach a decisive phase where Trump’s loyalties to one of the sides will be tested.

Regardless of this, Tillerson’s comments to a Senate Committee regarding Palestinian payments to terrorists should be noted and done so with concern:

“They have changed their policy,” Tillerson said, referring to the Palestinians. “At least I have been informed they’ve changed that policy and their intent is to cease payments.”

 

The problem with this statement is that the Palestinians admit themselves that they did not change their policy concerning payments to terrorist families.

“There have been talks about making the payments in a different way, but not ending them,” said one official, according to Reuters who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on discussions held with the Americans. “They could perhaps be labeled differently,” he said, suggesting the description “martyr” could be dropped, but he added: “They are not going to be stopped.”

 

Israel concurred and added:

“Israel is unaware of any change in the policy of the Palestinians, who continue to make payments to the families of terrorists.”

 

This purposeful obfuscation presents a challenge to those who understand that the peace process is nothing more than a globalist imperative to break down Israel’s ancestral rights to Land with a false occupation narrative. Will Tillerson and McMaster win out? That depends on the coordination between Greenblatt and Israeli officials who are being very careful to point out the Arabs true reasons for normalizing relations with Israel.

At the end of the day, if Donald Trump wants a deal no matter the cost and the Arabs continue to shower accolades on him, then the peace process he hopes to invigorate will turn out to be a disaster.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]