Rael Isaac

IRAN AT THE UN

On April 10 the UN voted by acclamation to make an Iranian vice-chairman of the UN Disarmament Commission. American Jewish Congress chairman Jack Rosen characterized this as "a rude slap in the face of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the UN Security Council." On the contrary, it's a blowing of trumpets by those who set the tone of the world organization. In its new role Iran, which almost daily promises to wipe Israel off the map, promptly demanded that Israel open all its nuclear sites to international inspection. Rosen declares that "The UN Disarmament Commission was the last international body where we thought we'd see Iran as a member.” Yet another reason to believe the AJC inhabits an alternative universe. The UN Disarmament Commission is precisely the place one expects Iran to be. Even more suitable than the UN Human Rights Commission.

ON ROBERT NOVAK
I
n his most recent anti-Israel column (April 17), Robert Novak sounds every imaginable anti-Israel stop. His piece, datelined "Aboud, West Bank" begins with Novak standing atop "the remnant of the Santa Barbara shrine, destroyed by the Israeli Defense Forces." From here he can see properties confiscated to make room for Israel's security wall "at the cost of centuries-old olive trees." (If the destruction of a "shrine" -- the place in question had been a terrorist base -- doesn't get you sufficiently riled up, perhaps your religion is environmentalism, so there's those olive trees.) Novak goes on to say the wall threatens Israel's tiny Christian minority, endangering Aboud's "Christian roots going back two millennia." (If multiculturalism is your thing, there's Israel's attack on a minority and if tradition moves you, he throws in two thousand years.) How does it "threaten" them? Well, these people used to work in Tel Aviv, and now have nothing to do. Israel, it appears, "owes" them a living even though they live in Palestinian Authority territory.

Novak lapses into the downright ludicrous. He describes “a conscious Israeli policy of getting rid of the Christian minority” and says --with the exception of a single Franciscan Father --"I could not find another Catholic layman or prelate who complained of anti-Christian bias by Muslims." That would suggest a truly impressive level of intimidation by the PA. for of course the real threat to Christians are the Muslims of the PA, who have succeeded in driving most of them out through massive harassment, stealing of Christian property etc. And with an Islamist Hamas government, the situation for Christians can only deteriorate further.

The funniest item is a quote from Latin Patriarch Michael Sabbah that Novak mournfully passes on: “The world has abandoned the Palestinians.” This when it would be more accurate to say the world “community” seems to think of nothing else.

The very day Novak spouts his litany of falsity and trivia, the front page of the New York Sun describes vicious assaults on Copts in Egypt. Meanwhile Christians flee en masse from Iraq and in Afghanistan a man has to be spirited out of the country after he narrowly escaped judicial murder for the crime of converting to Christianity 15 years earlier.

Novak has demonstrated an intense, obsessive hatred for Israel for decades. In this column it takes him over the edge.

JOEL CARMICHAEL Z'L

We mourn the passing of Joel Carmichael, who edited Midstream for 24 years, making it one of the very few Jewish publications prepared to expose the organizations of the anti-Israel left, whether Jewish (like Breira) or simply “progressive” (like the Institute for Policy Studies). He persisted despite the difficulties his right-wing politics, including his resolute anti-Communism, caused him with the magazine’s liberal board.

Carmichael was truly, as his successor at Midstream Leo Haber described him, a polymath, a man of encyclopedic knowledge. Adept at languages (he studied Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic at Oxford), he translated Anna Karenina from the Russian (for Bantam), Dan Theodore’s The Origins of Bolshevism from the French and wrote a full length study of Arabic. He wrote a series of books on the origins and development of Soviet Communism, a number of books on the Arab and Islamic world, and many books on the origins of Christianity and development of Christian anti-Semitism. One book, The Death of Jesus, was translated into eight languages. Always original, often controversial, Carmichael’s impact on many fields of study will be ongoing.

ON IMMIGRATION

Theodore Roosevelt’s words in 1907 were never more pertinent than today:

“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American and nothing but an American...We have room for but one flag, the American flag…We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

U.S. COUNSELS RESTRAINT

The U.S. response to terror attacks on Israel was always silly. It just sounds sillier now. In the wake of the most recent suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack declared that the U.S. “as always, ask them [Israel] to consider the effect of their actions upon the prospects, future prospects for peace.”

Peace? The Prime Minister and Interior Minister of the new Hamas government met with disgruntled unpaid PA officers and urged them to attack Israel, so as to be eligible for funds from Iran and other countries. And the PA has appointed Juval Abu Samhadana director general of the Interior Ministry. He won the post for his work as head of the Popular Resistance Committees responsible for most of the homemade rockets launched at Israel over recent weeks.

PERFIDIOUS ALBION

It didn’t take long. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says “Hamas now heads the PA government, and [Britain] wants to maintain normal relations with them as we did with the previous government.” No need to “recognize” Israel, says Straw. England would be satisfied with the group “accepting” the existence of the Jewish state. One can anticipate the formula ahead. Hamas will acknowledge that Israel exists (that should be no problem; Hamas agrees it exists and vows to extirpate it) and England and the EU go back to funding-as-usual.