Rael Jean Isaac

Naming Sharon's New Party

Ariel Sharon is establishing a new party he has named Kadima, meaning "Forward." Given that Sharon's purpose is to retreat from more territory (and he feels the Likud, bruised from the last round, is likely to balk at the massive expulsions of Jews he has in mind), we suggest a more appropriate name for the new party: Achora meaning "Backwards."

The party will send Israel backwards in every respect. Since it will not have a majority, Sharon will depend on a coalition with Labor which, under the leadership of the primitive Amir Peretz (see Steven Plaut's article on Israel's new leader of the Labor Party in this issue), will mean a return to the stifling socialism from which the Israeli economy has finally begun to emerge.

Idiocy, American Jewish Style

The academy is overflowing with anti-Israel fervor. Mainline churches embark on divestment campaigns. Moslems attack Jews, desecrate cemeteries and destroy synagogues in France. Anti-Semitism in England becomes virulent, the flames fed by its ever-growing Moslem population. Iran's President calls for Israel to be wiped off the map. A TV series based on that notorious forgery the Protocols of the Elders of Zion further poisons the Arab world against Jews. Opponents of the Iraq war, left and right, attack it as a neo-con (read Jewish) conspiracy to help Israel.

So how does the Anti-Defamation League address these extremely serious problems? By ignoring them, that's how, and instead attacking evangelical Christians, Israel's chief base of support in the United States, as the great threat against which the Jewish community must mobilize..

The chutzpah of the ADL's Abe Foxman is breathtaking. For what is the sin of the Christian right in his eyes? Why it's doing what the ADL and other Jewish organizations do routinely. As Hillel Halkin aptly observes In an essay entitled "Foxman's Hypocrisy," Foxman accuses the Christian right of pushing an "agenda on a wide range of issues, including judicial nominees, stem-cell research, same-sex marriage, abortion restriction and faith-based initiative" -- each of them issues on which major Jewish organizations have "again and again, fought for politically liberal positions." Columnist Don Feder reports that the ineffable Foxman in June actually wrote to the superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy demanding an end to the practice of grace being said-- led on a rotating basis by Protestant Catholic and Jewish chaplains -- before midshipmen take lunch. As Jews and Israel come under fire everywhere, this is what engages the ADL!

Not surprisingly, the Union of American Hebrew Organizations, under the equally disgraceful Eric Yoffie, has trotted after Foxman, passing a resolution attacking the Christian right for engaging in political action. With chutzpah to rival Foxman's, it then passed a resolution demanding that the Senate reject Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the fight against anti-Semitism would be best served if the ADL and the UAHC went out of existence, given that both organizations actively promote anti-Semitism by doing their utmost to make enemies of would-be friends.

Christians in "Palestine"

While Christians continue to thrive in Israel, in areas governed by the Palestinian Authority they have shrunk to less than 1.7% of the population. So writes Professor Justus Weiner in his new monograph "Human Rights of Christians in Palestinian Society,” which can be read in full at www.jepa.org/christian-persecution.htm. Weiner writes: "Their plight is, in part, attributable to the adoption of Muslim religious law (sharia) in the constitution of the Palestinian Authority. Moreover the Christians have been abandoned by their religious leaders who, instead of protecting them, have chosen to curry favor with the Palestinian leadership." Their situation has been ignored by the West, the media, and human rights organizations. The Vatican has recently obliquely taken notice, lamenting that Bethlehem, "where Christ was born, the place of the Incarnation...the heart of all Christians" and where Christians were not long ago the majority, may soon be wholly empty of Christians.

"Liberated" Iraq

At the U.S. backed "reconciliation conference," held in Egypt under the auspices of the Arab League, leaders of Iraq's warring Sunnis, Shiites and Kurdish communities reached common ground -- attacking the Americans is "in," attacking Moslem civilians is "out." The "memorandum" issued at the end of the conference by the 100 Iraqi representatives, many of them running in the coming elections, legitimized the insurgency against coalition forces on the grounds that “resistance is a legitimate right of all nations." The memorandum condemned only "terrorism and acts of violence, killing and kidnapping targeting Iraqi citizens and humanitarian, civil government institutions, national resources and houses of worship." Incredibly State Department spokesman Sean McCormack was unconcerned with the endorsement of killing Americans saying the U.S. "had no quarrel" with "the right to peaceful protest." Hello? Ahmad Chalabi was not such a fool, denouncing the conference and calling the distinction between terrorism and resistance "very very dangerous."

While the State Department may strive to put a false face on the proceedings, ordinary Americans may well ask "Is it for this our soldiers sacrificed their lives and continue to sacrifice them?"

Targeting Douglas Feith

It looks as if Douglas Feith, a patriot who gave up a lucrative law practice to serve as undersecretary of defense under Donald Rumsfeld, is being set up to take the rap for the intelligence failures preceding the war. Feith is being unfairly portrayed as "a main architect of the Iraqi war" and Republicans and Democrats alike are piling on this bandwagon. Both the Republican Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Armed Services have demanded an investigation of Feith's "prewar intelligence activities." The Pentagon inspector general has undertaken a review to determine if Feith gave the White House uncorroborated intelligence, bypassing the CIA.

Since the CIA's then director George Tenet is known to have told President Bush that it was a "slam dunk" that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, it would seem that bypassing the CIA or going through the CIA would make little difference. The fact is that all Western intelligence agencies were convinced Saddam Hussein was up to his neck in WMD programs. Blaming Feith is shoddy behavior. Our politicians should be focusing on Iraq's ungrateful politicians, who are legitimizing the murder of our soldiers -- it is shameful of them to turn on one of the most dedicated of our public servants.

Haaretz Outdoes The NY Times

For 20 years CAMERA has painstakingly followed the often biased media coverage of Israel and the Middle East, documenting errors and often obtaining (reluctant) corrections. For the most part CAMERA has covered the U.S. media, although it has also paid attention to the blatant falsities of the BBC. Last year CAMERA opened an office in Israel and began to monitor Haaretz, described by its admirers as Israel's New York Times. To CAMERA's amazement, it discovered that unlike American and international outlets, Haaretz absolutely refused to admit or correct the most egregious errors. Tamar Sternthal, director of CAMERA's Israel office, writes that Haaretz "considers itself above criticism...and appears to believe readers have no right to fault them for shoddy, inaccurate coverage."

Exemplifying Haaretz's incompetence, assistant editor Ruth Meisels inadvertently sent Sternthal what was clearly meant to be internal Haaretz email. Addressed to an Haaretz employee who handled phone calls, the email warned (in Hebrew): "In the event that this [CAMERA complaint] gets to you: We have a quasi 'policy,' on the orders of [editor-in-chief] David [Landau], to ignore this organization and all its complaints, including not responding to telephone messages and screening calls from Tamar Sternhal [sic], director of CAMERA. Otherwise, we will never finish with them."

If Haaretz could anticipate unceasing CAMERA corrections, it is because of the unbelievable sloppiness of its bitterly anti-Israel (in their own lingo, "post-Zionist") reporters and columnists. Haaretz desperately needs the sober corrective sober eye of CAMERA that it so arrogantly repudiates.

The Displaced Jews of Gaza

Now that it has expelled and destroyed the communities of Gush Katif and northern Samaria, the government has turned its back on them. Thousands are still stranded in small hotel rooms, and very few have received any of the promised compensation. Most unbelievable of all, those who had mortgages on their now-destroyed homes have had their bank accounts frozen so that the loans can be automatically repaid. Never mind that the government destroyed their assets — as far as the banks are concerned, and they have been backed by the government, the former residents must repay the loans. Adding insult to injury the Israel Electric Company announced it was leveling a charge on each family for disconnecting the electricity in the homes, greenhouses and other enterprises of Gush Katif. The sum, especially for farmers, is expected to reach thousands of shekels per person. And this despite the fact the Electric Company did no disconnecting -- the army's bulldozers destroyed the houses and with them their electric meters while, in the greenhouses, rioting Arabs looted all the electric equipment.

We strongly recommend reading an interview Kenneth Levin, author of The Oslo Syndrome, gave to Frontpage Magazine. It can be seen at http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20222