Rael Jean Isaac

By Those They Honor…

We have many times pointed out in this column that those whom a society honors tells you a great deal about the society—its values, priorities and goals—and many of the prizes Israel has offered in recent years speak volumes of the country’s moral and political decline.

Yet another case in point: among the 2007 winners of Israel’s high prestige Emet Prize for Science, Art and Culture was Prof. Avishai Margalit, who taught philosophy at Hebrew University from 1970 to 2006. The selection committee includes a former Israeli Supreme Court Justice, assorted officials from the Prime Minister’s Office and academics.

As film maker Joel Amitai has noted, Margalit was a board member of B’tselem, the nefarious Israeli “human rights” organization that has served to provide legitimacy to the international campaign to delegitimize Israel. For over 20 years Margalit has written for The New York Review of Books, providing a steady supply of the anti-Israel provender which it dispenses. His most famous assault was a lie: calling Israel’s Yad Vashem “a shrine of kitsch” he reported “a ‘children’s room’ has been dedicated there recently, a pitch-dark room with tape-recorded voices of children crying out in Yiddish, ‘Mama, Tate.’” Yad Vashem wrote in to The New York Review of Books offering a prize of one million dollars if Margalit could prove there existed or ever had existed such a thing. Margalit had made the whopper up out of whole cloth, which makes his award by an outfit calling itself “Emet” (Truth) even more scandalous.

More recently Margalit has used his New York Review of Books forum to make moral equivalences between the Israeli army and Hamas terrorists and to vilify Israel’s attempts to protect itself.

Now if Israel had a “foul your own nest award” Margalit -- although he would have stiff competition – would be a worthy contender.

Flogging Lionheart

British blogger Lionheart, who focuses on the evils of radical Islam within the United Kingdom, has been told by the Bedfordshire police to submit to arrest. Asked on what ground, the police emailed him this reply: “The offence that I need to arrest you for is ‘Stir up Racial Hatred by displaying written material’ contrary to sections18(1) and 27(3) of the Public Order Act 1986.”

The Public Order Act of 1986 makes it an offense to “stir up racial hatred,” defined as “hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to colour, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins.” The definitions are vague making it a splendid weapon against freedom of speech. Nor are the penalties inconsequential—imprisonment for up to seven years, a fine, or both.

What makes all this especially Kafkaesque is that the U.K. itself is funding the most vicious stirring up of racial hatred. The British TaxPayers Alliance reports that 47.5 million pounds of taxpayer money is funding the hate curriculum of the Palestinian Authority, specifically “textbooks praising insurgents in Iraq, arguing for the execution of apostates and the idealization of martyrdom” and “television broadcasts aimed at children that urge violence against non-Moslems and promote the view that Israel should not exist.”

General Motors vs. Ford

While it is well known that the openly anti-Semitic Henry Ford admired the Nazis, General Motors was no slouch when it came to fawning on Hitler. Signius Wilhelm Poul Knudsen, president of General Motors (selected by President Roosevelt in 1940 to head the production division of the Defense Commission) in 1938, on inspecting GM’s German plants, proclaimed Hitler’s regime “the miracle of the twentieth century.” Knudsen brought to the Defense Commission as his liaison James D. Mooney who was awarded the Nazi Eagle by Hitler for his help in building Germany’s blitzkrieg machine as vice President of General Motors Overseas.

No Electricity for Hamas

The Arabs have pulled off another of their publicity stunts, with Hamas plunging Gaza into darkness, knowing full well that the Western media would mindlessly echo its claim that Israel did it.

But this brings up another question. Why on earth should Israel supply Hamas-run Gaza with electricity to make the rockets it rains upon her citizens? If Israel will not invade Gaza—the best way to eliminate the rocket and missile attacks on its territory—it is incumbent upon it to protect its own citizenry by exerting pressure in other ways. If Hamas chooses to make war, the citizenry must pay a price, as is the case in any war.

How about announcing in advance a day’s cutoff of electricity for every rocket that falls on Israeli soil?