Israeli Culture and Sports Minister (and former Brigadier General) Miri Regev has a curious view of democracy. Regev is the author of a “cultural loyalty” bill that would allow fines or withdrawing support for any institution for a host of free speech violations, including “the denial of Israel’s democratic nature.” Thus, the bill would allow Israel to punish those who challenge its commitment to democracy so that Israel can show that it is a democracy. Follow? Let’s try again. If someone denies Israel is a true democracy, they will be punished of using their free speech to criticize the government. Well, the important thing is that it all makes sense to Regev. It is taken from the same oxymoronic lesson book as “the beatings will continue until morale improves” or “destroying a village to save it.”
Regev was long the spokeswoman for the Israeli Defense Forces. She has long been a menace to free speech and artists. When the al-Midan theater wanted to put on the play “A Parallel Time” (about Walid Daka, who planned the murder of IDF soldier Moshe Tamam in 1984), Regev froze state funding for the al-Midan theater where the play was being performed.
Now she wants more power to police free speech and artistic expression.
Article 3a currently places this power with the Finance Minister but Regev wants the power to punish free speech in the Ministry of Culture because “it is the Ministry of Culture’s responsibility to supervise cultural institutions, including what they offer, and make sure they are not breaking the country’s laws.” While many would question the need for any cultural ministry (culture tends to evolve on its own), Regev made clear that being a democracy does not mean enjoying democratic freedoms and culture must meet a government test for acceptability: “Cultural institutions are not above the law. They must work according to the laws of the State of Israel and we must make sure of this – and not keep our eyes closed.”
Regev’s career was helped by staunchly anti-immigration rhetoric like in 2012 when she called illegal Sudanese immigrants “a cancer in our body.”
Hey, Ralph/Khaled, perhaps I was wrong, perhaps you are an Orthodox against Zionism type of guy. Seems to me that your quarrel is NOT with me or Turley, it is with the many Jews who want Israel destroyed 🙂
Those anti-Semites!
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WHY ORTHODOX JEWS ARE OPPOSED TO A ZIONIST STATE
http://www.nkusa.org/AboutUs/Zionism/opposition.cfm
First some introductions:
1) What is “The People of Israel” ?
The People of Israel have existed for thousands of years.
They have their own particular, essential nature.
The Torah is the source of their essential nature.
Without Torah and Faith there is no People of Israel.
Whoever denies the Torah and the Faith is no longer part of the People of Israel.
The purpose of the People of Israel in this world is Divine Service.
Their salvation is occupation in Divine Service.
2) What is Zionism?
Zionism is a relatively new thing.
It has only existed for a century.
Zionism redefines the true essential nature of the People of Israel, and substitutes for it a completely contradictory and opposite character – a materialistic worldly nation.
Their misfortune is lack of what other nations possess, i.e. a state and army.
Their salvation is possession of a state and army etc.
This is clearly spelled out in the circles of Zionist thought, and among the leaders of the Zionist State, that through changing the nature and character of the People of Israel and by changing their way of thinking they can set before the People of Israel “their salvation” — a state and an army.
The People of Israel oppose the so-called “State of Israel” for four reasons:
FIRST — The so-called “State of Israel” is diametrically opposed and completely contradictory to the true essence and foundation of the People of Israel, as is explained above. The only time that the People of Israel were permitted to have a state was two thousand years ago when the glory of the creator was upon us, and likewise in the future when the glory of the creator will once more be revealed, and the whole world will serve Him, then He Himself (without any human effort or force of arms) will grant us a kingdom founded on Divine Service. However, a worldly state, like those possessed by other peoples, is contradictory to the true essence of the People of Israel. Whoever calls this the salvation of Israel shows that he denies the essence of the People of Israel, and substitutes another nature, a worldly materialistic nature, and therefore sets before them, a worldly materialistic “salvation,” and the means of achieving this “salvation” is also worldly and materialistic i.e. to organize a land and army. However, the true salvation of the People of Israel is to draw close to the Creator. This is not done by organization and force of arms. Rather it is done by occupation to Torah and good deeds.
SECOND — Because of all of this and other reasons the Torah forbids us to end the exile and establish a state and army until the Holy One, blessed He, in His Glory and Essence will redeem us. This is forbidden even if the state is conducted according to the law of the Torah because arising from the exile itself is forbidden, and we are required to remain under the rule of the nations of the world, as is explained in the book VAYOEL MOSHE. If we transgress this injunction, He will bring upon us (may we be spared) terrible punishment.
THIRD — Aside from arising from exile, all the deeds of the Zionists are diametrically opposed to the Faith and the Torah. Because the foundation of the Faith and Torah of Israel is that the Torah was revealed from heaven, and there is reward for those who obey it and punishment for those who transgress it. The entire People of Israel is required to obey the Torah, and whoever doesn’t want to, ceases to be part of the congregation of Israel.
FOURTH — Aside from the fact that they themselves do not obey the Torah they do everything they can to prevent anyone they get under their power from fulfilling the commands of the Torah, the claims to freedom of religion are lies. They fight with all of their strength to destroy the Faith of Israel.
The Zionists claim that they are the saviors of Israel, but this is refuted by twelve things:
FIRST — If one contemplates the two thousand years of our exile, take any hundred years even the hardest, one will not find as much suffering, bloodshed, and catastrophes for the People of Israel in the period of the Zionists, and it is known that most of the suffering of this century was caused by the Zionists, as our Rabbis warned us would be the case.
SECOND — It is openly stated in books written by the founders of Zionism that the means by which they planned to establish a state was by instigating anti-Semitism, and undermining the security of the Jews in all the lands of the world, until they would be forced to flee to their state. And thus they did – They intentionally infuriated the German people and fanned the flames of Nazi hatred, and they helped the Nazis, with trickery and deceit, to take whole Jewish communities off to the concentration camps, and the Zionists themselves admit this. (See the books Perfidy, Min Hameitzor, etc.). The Zionists continue to practice this strategy today. They incite anti-Semitism and then they present themselves as the “saviors”. Here are two replies given by Leaders of the Zionists during World War II, when they were asked for money to help ransom Jews from the Nazis. Greenbaum said “One cow in Palestine is worth more than all the Jews in Poland.” (G-d forbid).
Weitzman said, “The most important part of the Jewish people is already in the land (of Israel) and those who are left, are unimportant” (May we be spared).
THIRD — We see that most of world Jewry lives in security and under good physical conditions, and have no desire to go live in the Zionist State. Whereas many people have left the Zionist State to live under better conditions in other lands.
FOURTH — The Zionists make a great deal of propaganda to induce people to immigrate to their state. If their state is so beneficial why do they have to make so much propaganda.
FIFTH — Because nobody wants the Zionists to “save” them. The only way they can get immigrants is by promising poor people material benefits, and even then very few people respond.
SIXTH — The Zionist State is always threatened by the dangers of war. Whereas the rest of world Jewry live in peace and security, (Except in a few places where the Zionists have undermined their security and fanned the flames of hatred)
SEVENTH — The Zionist State could not continue to exist without economic support from Jews living outside of the Zionist State.
EIGHTH — The Zionist State is on the verge of economic collapse, and their money is nearly worthless.
NINTH — The Zionist State persecute all Jews who are loyal to their Faith.
TENTH — They start wars that endanger the Jewish People, for the sake of their own political interests.
ELEVENTH – According to the Torah the path of safety is following ways of peace not starting fights with other nations, as the Zionists do.
TWELFTH — Even if the Zionists could and would provide physical security it would be at the expense of our Faith and Our Torah the true People of Israel prefer death rather than life at such a cost.
It is therefore clear that Zionism is not the savior of the people of Israel. Rather it is their greatest misfortune.
Even though there are some observant Jews and rabbis, who approve of the Zionists, this is not the opinion of the Torah.
The Zionists have enough control over the American news media to make sure that only their side of the story is heard.
They make it look like all Jewry and their rabbis are Zionists, but this is false propaganda.
The most important Rabbis and the majority of religious Jewry are opposed to Zionism, but their voice is not heard because of Zionist control of American news media.
The Zionists terrorize everyone who speaks out against them.
That part of the Jewish masses which is fooled by Zionist propaganda puts pressure on their Rabbis not to speak out.
Between the terror and the pressure of the masses most of the Rabbis are prevented from speaking out.
We bring three testimonies of the true opinion of the Torah.
1) In the past two thousand years of the dangers and sufferings of exile not once did any of the Sages of Israel suggest that we make a state to protect ourselves. In every generation we had thousands of Sages well versed in the Torah.
2) We have thousands of legal work of Torah law that have been handed down to us by the Sages of all generations. Not once do we see a word suggesting the establishment of a state. What we do find is warnings against it.
3) The founders of Zionism were all atheists who denied the Torah. All the Torah Sages of that time opposed them and opposed Zionism, saying that Zionism would lead only to destruction.
However the true People of Israel will never change their nature or give up their Faith because of the strength the Creator gives them.
Zionism is a foreign growth in the body of the Jewish People. The end will be that it will rid itself of this foreign growth and remain pure.
Zionism has overcome the Jewish people by force, fraud and terror, but none of this will help them because the truth will always remain with the help of the Creator.
Zionism will not replace the Jewish People. The Jewish People will remain strong in their faith and the Zionist State will cease to exist.
It is therefore, our demand that the State that calls itself ISRAEL, should cease to exist. Since this won’t be done, we demand that they cease to call themselves “Israel”, because their entire being is in complete opposition to the true People of Israel. The true People of Israel deny them permission to call themselves by that name. The Zionist leaders have no right to set themselves up as the representatives and spokesmen of the true People of ISRAEL.
Since we know they will not fulfill this demand either we feel that at least we cry out the truth. The truth will always remain the truth. By no means or force can the truth be changed. Even if all the world would say that one and one is three, the truth will remain that one and one is two.
Let the truth be declared. The use of the Name “ISRAEL” by that State is a complete falsification. The People of Israel have nothing to do with that State. Zionism and its State have no share and no part in the true ISRAEL.
Ralph, my hero.
I could not have been clearer, but you continue to play puerile and deceptive games. I have asked you tell the truth and to be honest for a change. That is all I have asked. For example, admit that you want to see Israel destroyed for starters, just like Turley’s friend Sami Amin Al-Arian said. Al-Arian showed some measure of honesty when he said “Jihad is our path. Victory to Islam. Death to Israel. Revolution. Revolution until victory. Rolling to Jerusalem.” Can you at least be honest in the way that Al-Arian was about what he’d like to see happen to Israel? I truly doubt that you will. You and honesty have been strangers for such a long time that finally making the connection at this late stage in your life would be an awkward and unsettling experience.
Ralph/ Khaled,
Are you asking me to tell YOUR truth?
Just state it yourself!
My truth? What I’d like to happen to Israel? That it treats Palestinians and Israeli Arabs equally, simple!
Other than that, I have no quarrel with Israel.
As for you however, your insistence that others attack Israel is a bit strange.
At least bambam is protective of Israel, unlike you.
I’ll ask prof Turley to check your ip address, I bet it would pin you in Gaza.
Like I said, po, you can only respond with deception. It’s in your nature. And because you’ve been lying to yourself and others for so long, you may well even believe in some of your own lies. But you can’t fool anyone else who’s not a dupe or a dope for leftist lies. But keep trying. There are plenty of dupes and dopes who will buy into anti-Jew and anti-Israel lies.
So let me understand, “Ralph”, you are asking me to demonize Israel with the same vitriol you show others?
Why?
Why do I gain?
What do YOU gain?
po, nobody has asked you or Jonathan Turley to cease writing anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, pro-Islamoterrorism, or pro-Islamonazi screeds. Both of you are going to do that regardless of the facts and regardless of what I or others may say opposing those positions. After all, Turley is very proud that he defended — purportedly pro bono — Sami Amin Al-Arian, who said in Cleveland in 1988 that “Jihad is our path. Victory to Islam. Death to Israel. Revolution. Revolution until victory. Rolling to Jerusalem.” And you, no doubt, were delighted that he did, as others who hate Jews and Israel applauded Turley’s work on Al-Arian’s behalf.
But what I would like to see is some measure of honesty of any sort from you and Turley for a change. Although I understand that deception is inherent to your natures, you ought to be honest just once in a while about what you are and what you are all about, the way that David Duke is “honest” — in the sense that he discloses to a considerable extent that he wants to see Israel and Jews eliminated. But instead, you fraudulently hide behind the absurd lie of being “humanitarians” or other such false labels that you give yourselves.
You and Turley remind me of when David Duke contacted John Mearsheimer, who wrote anti-Jewish and anti-Israel propaganda under an academic banner, and Duke expressed his thanks for saying what Duke had been saying about Jews and Israel all along for decades. Instead of extending his appreciation and acknowledging Duke as a soul-mate, Mearsheimer tried to disassociate himself from Duke. Mearsheimer just couldn’t be honest about what he is and what he’s all about.
So be honest for a change. Let’s have some truth in labeling at least every now and then. Say proudly what you really believe about Jews and Israel, like David Duke does, to a considerable extent.
Ralph, let the record show that I am the one who insists no one speaks ill of Israel and it is you who keep insisting people say such evil things about Israel as you advocate.
Which is really strange come to think of it.
I mean, both prof Turley and I never speak of Israel wholesale, we are careful and discriminating about which Israelis we are talking about, yet you attack other groups wholesale while insisting, adamantly, that we attack Israel with the same amount of vitriol you direct to other groups!
I suspected it before but am now certain you are a Hamas plant aiming to make as many people hate Israel as can. That’s not gonna work here, “Ralph”, you will not succeed in making us hate a whole country for the evil things some do.
Go back to your superiors and let them know we are onto you!
And I also agree with bam and Ralph that Israel is NOT fair game on this blog.
Why should we condemn Israel for human rights violations when other countries are worse?
That’s unfair!
I think that both Ralph and Bam should have the right to pile on whenever the subject is on Islam and Muslim countries, and keep offering articles and “Facts”to further demonize Muslims, but none of us, including you, and especially you, prof Turley should speak ill of Israel.
This blog should only be about Muslims acting stupid.
Hell, the whole world is fair game, including all of us Americans, but I agree with them to leave Israel out of this, that’s antisemitic.
You anti-semites!
Bam, Ralph, keep fighting the good fight!
I, for one, am glad Israel is a democracy…
I agree with bam, the fact that it is the only democracy that does not afford equality among its citizens should NOT be held against it, that’s unfair.
WE also want to encourage her to be more democratic, not less, imagine the alternative if it gets any less democratic than this:
———————————————–
On the website of Hiddush, a nonprofit organization that promotes religious freedom and equality in Israel, there is a world map showing countries that restrict freedom of marriage. The countries given as imposing “severe restrictions” include most states between Morocco to the west and Pakistan to the east. And Israel is no exception.
Marriage in the Jewish state is a complex matter, and is almost entirely under the purview of religious authorities.
There is no civil marriage. Jews can only be married in a religious ceremony, by an Orthodox rabbi under the authority of the Chief Rabbinate, the top religious authority for Jews in Israel. This means there is also no interfaith marriage between Jews and non-Jews, since Orthodox Judaism does not allow mixed unions. Israelis who belong to other streams of Judaism, such as Reform or Conservative, must still tie the knot in front of an Orthodox rabbi in a traditional ceremony if they want their marriage to be recognized by the state.
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium-1.596576
We had the German American Bund here in America until WWII started. The name faded but the prejudices still reside. You can read it in some comments here. Actung!
Ralph @3:25 pm
Well said. The world burns around us, Europe is circling the drain, as it is flooded with barbaric savages from Muslim countries, bombs being placed on planes, by the same lunatics, Christians are being raped, kidnapped, beheaded and murdered, en masse, throughout the Middle East and Turley is worried about the words of an Israeli Minister of Culture.
Good to see where his priorities are in this regard.
Oh, yeah, by the way, I just read an article in the paper this morning about an Italian student, living in Egypt, found murdered and discarded, along the roadside in Egypt. Seems like he was openly critical of Egypt’s leader. Now, continue on, JT, along with your fellow Jew-haters, in denouncing the State of Israel and declaring how undemocratic it is. Carry on.
Corrections to my post above should read as follows.
Paragraph 2: (Yes, I know that the leftists have attempted to try to discredit this quote, but documented evidence supports it.)
Paragraph 8: Now, I’m sure that many leftists here would be arguing that cutting government funding of such “art” works as “Piss Christ” is an attack on democracy too, but nobody with any common sense would argue such a thing. Nobody is saying that pseudo-artists like Serrano can’t produce their feces and urine “art” and sell it in the open market. But to demand the end to taxpayers’ funding of that literal crap cannot be called an attack on democracy by any stretch of the perverted leftists’ imaginations.
🙂
This Jonathan Turley article is another anti-Israel piece of clap-trap crap written by an anti-Israel leftist for other anti-Israel readers. Naturally, such an article is necessarily short on facts and analysis (if any can be found at all) but loaded with leftist anti-Israel propaganda.
Of course, it’s not just about Israel, but also about Jews. As Martin Luther King, Jr. correctly put it at a presentation to people from Harvard in 1968, “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism.” (Yes, I now that the leftists have attempted to try to discredit this quote, but documented evidence supports it.)
Thus, leftists like Jimmy Carter have called for a plan to deal with carving up Israel that Carter himself has called the “final solution.” Yes, he used the same words that Nazis used because Carter is actually one of the more honest anti-Semites and enemies of civilization in that he doesn’t attempt so much to hide what he’s all about, just like his soul-mate David Duke could be called “honest” in this regard.
But let’s get back to the subject at hand. The source relied on for the above article is Haaretz, a worthless, leftist rag that would be just fine if Israel were to be destroyed. The fact that Haaretz even exists in Israel is proof positive that Israel is a democracy. But let’s put that aside.
Let’s look at the facts. What is Israeli Culture Minister Miri Regev — a true Israeli hero and patriot — really saying? She simply would like to see state funding cut for organizations or pseudo-artists who encourage boycotts of Israel or attacks on Israel or Israelis. But to leftist frauds like the author of this article and its source, this advances democracy in the same way that morale is advanced by following the dictum that “the beatings will continue until morale improves.” Such absurd “logic” is the inevitable result of the inherent perversity of leftist “reasoning.” Of course, the reality is that no reasoning whatsoever is involved. Leftists like the author of this article and his leftist admirers operate under a very simple premise: “if it’s anti-Israel, it’s all good, no matter what.”
That the author of the above article is a lawyer makes him even more duplicitous. Even mere students of law and history know that there are limits on free speech in even the best of democracies. To argue that Israel is not a democracy if Israel fails to fund organizations or pseudo-artists who seek to use their “art” to promote the destruction of Israel itself is beyond absurd.
In the USA, some members of Congress wanted to cut funding of such pseudo-artists as Andres Serrano, who is best known for his photos of corpses and his use of feces and bodily fluids in such “art works” as his “Piss Christ,” a red-tinged photo of a crucifix submerged in a glass container of what was purported to be the pseudo-artist’s own urine.
Now, I’m sure that many leftists here would be arguing that cutting government funding of such “art” works as “Piss Christ” is an attack on democracy too, but nobody with any common sense would argue such a thing. Nobody is saying that pseudo-artists like Serrano can’t produce their feces and urine “art” and sell it in the open market. But to demand that the taxpayers fund that literal crap cannot be called an attack on democracy by any stretch of the perverted leftists’ imaginations.
Similarly, Israel should not be required to fund its own destruction. Of course, to people like the author of the above article and those here who applaud his anti-Israel propaganda, they firmly believe that Israel must do everything it can to fund and promote its own self-destruction, and if someone with common sense in the Israeli government doesn’t want to do that they are characterized as “anti-democracy.”
But that is the problem: leftists are really authoritarians or fascists at heart, who want to force their agendas on everyone else. Calling an Israeli hero and patriot like Miri Regev “anti-democractic” is just a leftist anti-Israel canard, much like the “progressives” call anyone who does not support their pro-Islamoterrorist and Islamonazi agenda a “racist,” a “bigot,” or an “Islamophobe.”
Meanwhile, throughout the world, government sponsored murders and barbaric attacks on human rights are occurring every single day and night in scores of Islamic nations throughout the world in the name of Islam, but those are ignored by the leftists. No surprise there. After all, the leftists and the Islamic nations have the same thing in common: their mutual hatred of Israel, genuine freedom, and civilization.
And yet another new crazy has found the Turley blog! Yes, a marvelous group of people you’ve assembled here, Professor Turley.
She’s the one who wrote an op-ed, hinting that she would make it a criminal offense to call Jews ‘white’. The reason for this is to exempt Jews from the race war against whites that they’ve been stoking through the Black Muslims and many others world wide. The Jews and the Turks are the ancient enemies of Christians, so they arm our enemies with our stolen weapons, murder the best in our army and in every field of endeavor, and they use the schools to brainwash our kids into believing they are our allies. Our president plots our extermination. Armies are crossing our borders now, it’s against the law to acknowledge it, they occupy the government buildings, in control of the Pentagon. Foreigners everywhere you turn, laughing at us, gloating that they control the government, imagining that we would never defend ourselves. They plan to kill us in the night. What night? Jews aren’t white, she says.
Bad proofreading…
bam and bam and Karen. Here’s what I found on Wiki regarding Leonard Peltier:
“Leonard Peltier (born September 12, 1944) is a Native American activist and member of the American Indian Movement (AIM). In 1977 he was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for first degree murder in the shooting of two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents during a 1975 conflict on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
Peltier’s indictment and conviction have been the subject of much controversy; Amnesty International placed his case under the “Unfair Trials” category of its Annual Report: USA 2010.[1″
First of all he’s FBI agents are not “cops” so he’s not a cop killer at all. Maybe it was self defense. I don’t know enough about it, but he’s a good artist so let his damn art be shown. Since when did we become so inhumane that we can’t even recognize a person as a human being because he’s in prison? He’s not the boogey man for God’s sake. What are we so afraid of?
I am an American Indian. I won’t say the tribe. But I believe that North America would be much better off if the Europeans had not hit the shores and taken over. I lived on a Reservation for a while. When we would go off the Reservation we would get treated poorly. We can assimilate in America but it is difficult to listen to Catholics and whatnot preach about the high and the mighty or hear guys like Trump or Cruz. When I am old and can not walk I will go back to the Reservation. Or if my boat sinks and I have no money for another boat. Tomorrow I set sail for Bermuda.
She was probably right about Sudanise immigrants. You cannot have cancer in your body. Europe is learning this as we speak. Or fail to speak. Or maybe they won’t learn. Until its too late.
“Knesset Rejects Bill For Equality For All Citizens
By The Middle East Monitor
January 30, 2016 “Information Clearing House” – “MEM” – The Knesset yesterday voted against a draft bill proposed by MK Jamal Zahalka of the Joint Arab List, which stipulates the inclusion of an equality clause in Israel’s Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty.
The majority of the Likud bloc, the Haredi parties and Kulanu party voted against the proposal. They were joined by Yesh Atid, led by Yair Lapid. However, the Joint List, Meretz and the Labour parties all supported the bill.
During his proposal, Zahalka said: “All constitutions in modern countries begin with stressing the principle of equality amongst their citizens. Even undemocratic countries adopt this principle legally, considering it a cornerstone for any modern political system, including democracy, which seems impossible and meaningless without equality.”
Zahalka also said that equality is a principle in itself and is not based on any other principles, rather, other human rights values are derived from it. He described the absence of equality in the state’s Basic Law as “a serious absence, as it forces the judiciary, amongst others, to explain why the word equality is missing from the basic laws, which are in place of the constitution.”
He added that Judge Aharon Barack explained the current law as human dignity that must also include the principle of equality. This is why we must include the word equality in a clear manner in the Basic Law.
“Anyone voting against the law is voting against equality, and does not have the right to promote democracy or say they are against discrimination and racism. The entire world adopts the principle of equality in their laws, and this is the only country that does not embrace equality in its laws. This is clear proof of the state’s nature,” Zahalka stressed.
Jerusalem Post Opinion
Ban Ki-Moon doubles down on justifying murdered Jews
Opinion
By SHMULEY BOTEACH \
02/04/2016 14:17
Ban Ki-Moon doubles down on justifying murdered Jews
By purposely omitting the human rights violations of the Palestinian Authority against their own people, Ban shows that he is far more concerned with condemning Israel than protecting Palestinians.
Ban Ki-moon
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon . (photo credit:REUTERS)
Over the last four and a half months, 30 Israelis have been murdered and 301 wounded by Palestinian terrorists. There have been 83 stabbing attacks, 22 vehicle ramming attacks, and 15 shootings against Israeli civilians.
And yet, for UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, Jews are responsible for their own deaths. In his January 26 remarks to the UN Security Council, Ban justified the murder of Jews by citing “Palestinian frustration” and the “paralysis of the peace process.” For Ban, “alienation and despair” explain why Palestinians murder innocent men, women, and children.
Ban’s remarks were condemned by Israeli leaders for justifying terrorism and stoking murder in cold blood. But rather than retract his dangerous words, Ban doubled down in an op-ed in the New York Times, again blaming Israelis and settlements for the murder of Jews.
By purposely omitting the human rights violations of the Palestinian Authority against their own people, Ban shows that he is far more concerned with condemning Israel than protecting Palestinians.
Ban’s words and writings betray a blatant anti-Israel bias. Based on his statements you would get the idea that Israel alone is entirely at fault for the violence occurring and the Palestinians are completely blameless. Ban touts the well-known lie that if Israel would just withdraw from Judea and Samaria, peace would break out throughout the land.
However he knowingly and disingenuously leaves out the continuous genocidal incitement on the part of the PA and Hamas. He omits Abbas’ praises for the “martyrs” who kill Israelis while meeting with terrorists’ families, lauding their violence and “bravery.” And Ban conveniently ignores the fact that Abbas and the PA absolutely refuse to give up the “right of return” which are well-known code-words for the destruction of the Jewish State of Israel. In fact the PA has enacted laws stating that the right of return can never be relinquished.
Netanyahu summed up the motivations behind the recent wave of violence when he stated that Abbas “continues to incite with lying propaganda about al-Aksa, lying propaganda about executions, and by rejecting all true efforts to come to negotiations.”
Ban claims that the Palestinians’ desperation explains their violent actions. Yair Lapid pointed out how idiotic this statement is by pointing out, “There are millions of people in the world whose lives are harder than those of the Palestinians. In Africa, in Asia, in the Middle East…Those people don’t think there is anything, anything at all, which gives them license to take a knife and stab a mother of six. To take a knife and stab a woman who is five months pregnant.” Ban is well aware of this. But when it comes to Israel, when has the truth mattered to the UN?
Ban also fails to admit the gross human rights violations and executions that the PA and Hamas commit against women, homosexuals, Christians, and anyone who would speak out against them. Ban omits Mahmoud Abbas becoming a dictator by abolishing elections. He omits that Palestinian squalor is the result of Arafat having embezzled more than a billion dollars from the Palestinian people or the Abbas kleptocracy which has enriched him and his sons Yasser and Tariq to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Ban’s blatant bias against the Jewish state compels him to grossly misrepresent the causes of the violence in Israel and the near daily murder of Jews. He is well aware that after Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 Hamas easily overthrew Abbas’ attempt at governance and fired 14,000 rockets at Israel. Ban knows that this scenario would very likely be repeated in the West Bank with even deadlier results. Yet his inexplicable hostility toward the Jewish state compels him to peddle this fraudulence. In effect, Ban’s op-ed presents Israel with the stark choice of suicide, on the one hand, and international condemnation on the other.
Ban heads a corrupt and impotent organization that failed miserably to stop the genocides in Rwanda and Srebrenica. And yet he focuses on Israel to distract from the UN’s failures at stopping genocides today. Ban Ki-Moon will go down in history as having failed to stop the genocide of Arabs in Syria and the ethnic cleansing of Christians throughout the Middle East. He will be forever known as someone who spoke out against a military solution in Syria that might have stopped the mass murder of innocent Arabs. Someone who called on Obama not to attack Assad after using chemical weapons against children. Someone who eve spoke out against the bombing of ISIS.
Ban Ki-Moon has no problem attacking the Jewish state and has written articles condemning Israel on a number of occasions. But the same Ban who regularly attacks Israel for settlements has never condemned China for the occupation of Tibet, Turkey for the occupation of Cyprus, or Russia for occupying Crimea.
Ban has failed to speak out and stop the grossest human rights violations proliferating across the globe and the UN has all but guaranteed that Iran will become a nuclear power.
In your last year as Secretary General of the UN, it is understandable that you would try to force a high risk, dangerous agreement on the Israelis in the hopes of salvaging some remnant of a legacy. But it’s not too late to fix your broken moral compass and call on the Arab tyrannies that surround Israel to emulate its example of democracy and human rights rather than being remembered as the man who obsessed over Israel while the rest of the world burned.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, “America’s Rabbi,” is the international best-selling author of 30 books, winner of The London Times Preacher of the Year Competition, and recipient of the American Jewish Press Association’s Highest Award for Excellence in Commentary. He will shortly publish The Israel Warrior’s Handbook.
Steve @9:00 am
Unfortunately, what you fail to grasp is the simplest of concepts, as you apparently get easily distracted by the mere mention that Darren, and others who were private citizens, forced the hand of the federal government, through their letters and complaints, to cease from promoting, displaying or supporting the work of a convicted cop killer on federal property. Do you get that? The government, ultimately, removed the display from its rotunda because it was the correct and proper thing to do, and those complaints merely served as the impetus to do so. With the exception of a few wingnuts, who think that Peltier is an innocent man, there was no outcry from JT or from others on this site condemning the removal of the murderer’s artwork display on federally funded property. Why? Because most sane individuals agree that the government should not be in the business of promoting or supporting the work of a convicted cop killer by displaying his atrocious so-called artwork in buildings or property financed with the money provided by the taxpayer. Now, in the article above, the Israeli Minister of Culture, without the need for taxpayer outcries, does, basically, the exact same thing that our own government agreed to do. She refused to fund, with GOVERNMENT money, a theater, which, via a play, wanted to promote and support a murderer involved in the death of an Israeli soldier. If you are capable of specifically and coherently differentiating between what the federal government eventually did, with regard to Peltier’s artwork, and what this Israeli Minister of Culture did, with regard to the denial of funds to this theater, I would love to know the result. What the Israeli Minister of Culture did, however, incurs the anger of JT and succeeds in firing up all of the Hitler Youth on this site, who fail to recognize the comparison between the two situations, which are shockingly similar. I do not recall that same sense of indignation when the federal government, in our own country, finally did the right thing and removed Peltier’s artwork exhibition from the rotunda of the federal building, yet when an Israeli Minister of Culture does something practically identical, JT gets his panties in a bunch. The world has a vastly different standard for Israel than it has for the rest of the world. It is my mistake for expecting much more intellectual honesty from JT in this situation.